What one cannot see
by osburhofwessex57
Summary: Two years following the death of his wife, Amanda, Sarek is recalled to Earth after the brutal killing of another Ambassador. During this time he meets with Perrin and both are forced to face their grief, buried deep in their minds until now. Note: An exploration of the roots of their relationship, this story will be a slow burn.
1. Chapter 1

_Amanda. Amanda; AMANDA! Oh please no. —should have. I am Vulcan; I cannot. Why, why, did you stay? All those years—cannot love you. Spock where are you? Spock; I feel so ashamed that I—_

"Ambassador Sarek." The voice—the ship's captain's—was restrained and brought Sarek out of his thoughts. Sarek brushed away some of the residue still clouding his mind then looked briefly to the candle burning in front of him before snuffing it out and allowing the captain to enter.

"We are in Vulcan's atmosphere." Sarek gave a nod to acknowledge.

"My aids will see to my effects; I will go to the transporters momentarily." Sarek answered. He went to ready himself. Both he and the captain did not linger over goodbyes. The captain went up the hall towards the bridge; Sarek observed his assigned room with precision. Noting that most of his things had been packed up and taken away already, he threw on, and hid his PADD and his mediation candle in lining of, his cloak. As a calculated effect, it appeared to the passing crewmembers in the adjoining hall when Sarek walked out that only Sarek's form was under the cloak as though the ambassador just needed his thoughts. The crewmembers saluted him but did not linger. Each going on, he and them, to where needed.

Sarek noted the change from the various Starfleet ships sent to replenish his supplies on Excalbia during the 2.03 years he spent negotiating a permanent scientific settlement. The change was most apparent in the sustained still of the transporter room crew. On the last Federation starship to bring supplies, the _USS Hestia_ , the crew acted in a jovial manner until they noted Sarek approach. He had often considered if he should remind them of a Vulcan's superior hearing— his impressions were minimal when they compensated only for their own.

After stepping onto the platform, Sarek was on Vulcan in moments. Its heat hit him hard, and bits of loose ground kicked around his feet. At a short distance was his home that was cut slightly into the surrounding mountains. Sarek noted the slight changes in his villa sheltered in the landscape—new aides inside he recognized only by their Federation profiles, the dulled paint stained ruddy by the dirt; the now lack of a human scent that had been still present even on the 12.67 day of Amanda's death two years ago. In the interim of Sarek leaving for Excalbia it had faded. He remained in that spot long enough observing the changes to hear a hovercar. The approach was not straight due to the jutting rocks that distorted its trajectory; Sarek fell back to his front door so the small clearing where he'd stood could be taken over by it. A few of his aides came out to him.

With concern for the unplanned visit, Sarek fell behind them as they barricaded against the hovercar. All his aides were trained by his chief of staff in _Suus Mahna_ , Vulcan martial arts.

The occupants of the hovercar did not jump to address the confusion of a possible altercation. He and his aides listened intently. Sarek could hear some of the whispered sounds from inside the vehicle but leaned his ears towards it to pick up more of the conversation: "No…yes, it took some time but I forgot…for two years", "He married a human so he'll… Mr. Landover just step outside please, just ask and we'll leave if…" In response, Sarek walked over to the hovercar, waving off his aides who reshuffled out behind him regardless. He knew the one of the visitors was Ambassador Reynard Landover; Sarek had met him numerous times in his negotiations with the Legarians. Strangely for a man of his proven, over their association, diplomatic gifts, he'd been sent to a nearby planet of no diplomatic importance: Tele XI. In that particular section of the galaxy most Federation activities were conducted on Station 452. Sarek and Ambassador Landover had met whenever the Legarians felt new talks were necessary as Landover had lived on the station. They met rarely but enough. Sarek wiped out thoughts of sending Landover away. Instead he commanded his aides to replicate a glass of Merlot.

Reason suggested that the human would change in the 14 years since Sarek had last seen him.

As Reynard finally emerged, he moaned in pain; a light breeze was enough to drag off several strands of his thinning hair. Sarek noted the presence of slight to moderate tics in his hands and face predominantly, though other areas of his body did seem to display uncontrolled movements as well. Some of the muscle tone he'd maintained at the gym on Station 452 and in lirpa duels between Sarek and he had been lost; his skin hung in folds. A young human woman, a caretaker, guided the bulky chair that he sat in towards the Villa.

Sarek walked into his home beside Reynard. Once through the sliding doors, the Vulcan and his human guests exchanged greetings, though Sarek observed human customs and extended his hand to both. Something familiar to them, Sarek mused. The gesture relaxed both and broke a small smile on Landover's face.

"We're not a bother?"

"I returned only 8 minutes ago; I have not had the time to arrange for any other activities." Only Landover fell to ease that this answer. His blunt tone unnerved the caretaker who backed away. Sarek directed them further through the house.

The merlot was waiting on a small end table near the back wall of a wide room, its only features a wall length fountain and a cache of couches. Reynard was wheeled next to the glass and Sarek sat to the side of him. Waving away the caretaker who migrated just to the next room, Reynard turned to Sarek.

"Really, we can leave." He said.

"It is not the Vulcan way to turn away honored guests; for one that I may never again speak to… I hesitate especially." Sarek allowed a hint of concern for an old human associate.

Reynard laughed, but bowed his head. Silence. Suddenly he began to shake and snob; Sarek waited for his guest to calm himself but his emotions continued to rise. Sarek called for the caretaker once he detected Reynard's breathing becoming erratic. Getting over to him quickly and taking in his condition, she reached for a pouch around her waist. A hypospray lulled him enough so she could talk him down into drowsiness, and the increasing effects of the drug eventually caused Reynard to sleep. But sleeping did not affect the overall wasting appearance of his condition from some of the finer details of pain refusing to ease away.

Sarek observed the process calmly.

It was efficient—the caretaker knowing. A look at her pouch noted it filled with vials. Perhaps, Sarek mused, he would be seeing this process more than once regardless that he hadn't intended to host his guest past the evening. Then he would be alone, as Reynard appeared to be in the professional distance of his caretaker, his aides gone home, and no others but he occupying the villa. This thought caused him to walk out into the gardens. Sarek went through a indiscernible door that had been set into the glass making up the back wall; it made the gardens look like a painting due to their vibrancy even at night. The caretaker seemed relieved to be alone with Landover and mimed thanks to Sarek through the glass. He'd caught the gesture on the edge of his focus, Amanda's row of poppies. The flowers were bright and grew close together. Sarek was often surprised that the plant's hue did not disturb his human wife whose blood was a similar color. He avoided the thought; he decided to study the cactuses.

"Ambassador Sarek." He turned. Standing close to another doorway leading from his offices, his chief of staff waited to be acknowledged. Sarek nodded for him to continue.

"A call from the federation embassy in ShiKahr. Valor." The messenger implied the importance; Sarek didn't ask for any further explanation.

"I will answer it." Sarek pointed to Landover. "Have a room prepared, as a precaution."

Both walked through his offices, though Sarek stopped at a large granite desk; his chief of staff turned left into the hall that came out to where the guests were.

Sarek sat before an angled screen. It beeped until he spoke.

"Ambassador Sarek."

The screen lit up. First showing the federation seal, then displaying the image of Tim Valor, Head of Federation Bureau of Planetary Treaties _._ He saluted Sarek.

"Peace and long life."

"I come to serve." Sarek folded his hands together, not returning the guesture. There were those, Sarek noted, it was best not to observe too many courtesies towards. Valor didn't address it; he relayed his information quickly.

"Hate to say it; all federation ambassadors, except for those on priority missions, are being recalled to San Francisco." Valor leaned back as he continued.

"There was a serious breach in security on Ferenginar. Two ambassadors were kidnapped and killed. In relation to what is still being investigated, but we do feel it could have been prevented. We want to get some new information on the attacks and your, everybody's, input on…" he swiveled his chair in thought, "what could be done differently. So in light of that, we'll be keeping you guys on hand over here for a bit." He ended his speech with a smile. Sarek was unmoved.

"That does not seem like a logical solution given the lack of an estimative time frame for our being recalled." At this Valor was serious.

"Yet… to do anything else wouldn't be reasonable."

"Perhaps you are correct." Sarek answered.

"Yes; we'll let you know where we want you. Send that to Kavik?"

"Myself directly, and yes, to Kavik. Live long and prosper." In light of the news, Sarek extended his hand in farewell; Valor showed relief.


	2. Chapter 2

On Tau Ceti Deep Space Station until another ship carrying ambassadors from the Celes Sector arrived in 4.94 hours, Sarek looked over the 22nd century Earth designs of the station. The air dock walls were unpainted duranium, the rest of the station and the central hall were flat white. He hesitated to use the staircases linking the decks, since the metal was a thin as structurally possible. Its design was very human to Sarek in its impracticality.

Sarek crossed through the central hall. He weaved through the crowds unaccompanied and thereby overlooked, his cloak also drawn over his distinctive ears. His aides would arrive to Earth ahead of him to prepare his offices; they would not offer their normal partition from crowds. But safety was not a concern at a location so close to the heart of the Federation and not least adding to his ease was his arrival on Vulcan and departure for Earth remaining largely known to Valor, Sarek's aides, and the federation president alone.

People pushing past wildly, talking to talk, and the general flurry within the station ran against the quiet even on the streets of Vulcan's biggest cities. He pulled down on his cloak to further muffle everything.

Sarek followed to where the sounds seemed to dim. It led him behind the mess hall toward the far end of the station, quietest by a small staircase that lowered down to a completely unused part section. Sarek focused his ears. Not even the gentle hum of technology tinkled up.

The silence space was the former kitchen, Sarek noted as he descended. Some emergency lights blinked under the cabinets; they also illuminated the base of the walls, all bright enough to find the exits. He didn't need much more light than that but the heat was low compared to the rest of the station, enough that he did not care to adjust his internal temperature to compensate. Remembering the small environmental control pad on a cargo ship from his first trip to Earth in his twenties, he surmised that looking for one similar would be the rational course considering the age of the station. He located it near a small window, the sensors working though Sarek pressed hard on the buttons to bring up the menu. Thermostat offline in this part of the station blinked on. Logical. He turned away.

Since the room was unnecessary after replicators, only the fridge and stoves remained to label its purpose. Sarek saw that the window by the controls overlooked the space docks for Tau Ceti Deep Space Station. Down from that and behind two rows of carts, another window shimmered with starlight. A window for the cooks, Sarek observed from its location, and also for a round table and bench as far away from the stoves as space allowed. He went to it and sat, refining his estimates for when his transportation would arrive by which ships had in lieu of any work to be done during his recall to Earth. The _USS Tucker_ , announced to have arrived from Starbase 39; _USS Branch_ , arriving from Risa; _USS Ur_ , delayed due to anomaly in Typhon Expanse. The announcements were the only sounds to make it down to the kitchens with clarity. Noises from the people above had faded somewhat, and their movements seemed whispered. Sarek continued his estimations.

Clinking came from behind him, close enough that Sarek concluded it hadn't flittered down from the mess hall. Turning to the far cabinets, Sarek spotted someone leaned over, closely searching for something. They gave a resigned exhale and looked up.

It was a human woman with golden red hair pulled back by a scarf that circled the crown of her head, carrying a case. She could not find what she was searching for Sarek surmised was the reason for her sigh; he assumed she would return upstairs to wait with the others soon.

She remained, putting down her case and taking out a violin. With a brief inspection over it, running through a few notes as well, her playing turned into something more measured. Sarek did not know the song she began after a moment, but he did notice the preciseness of her playing. He was more struck by the content. It was an Earth song by the amount of emotion imbued in her playing. Yet the emotion was restrained. The sensation of each feeling rose and fell enough to note but without the wild discord typical of most Earth music. It was almost Vulcan.

Sarek drifted over with the final notes.

"Your performance was quite satisfactory." At his comment, the woman realized Sarek was there. It was too dim to pick up on the faint green flush of his skin but she did see his slanted brows as he stepped in front of her. That he was Vulcan seemed to disquiet her, Sarek presumed. She pursed her lips and stood a littler straighter.

"Why thank you, though I am just filling in for someone." She accompanied the reply with a slight smile. Strangely, it bore no emotion that Sarek could note. It was just an affectation, they way they curled and managed to isolate the movement to just a silver of muscles around them.

"Am I disturbing you?" She asked.

"No, I have not been disturbed. I am curious, however; what was that song? I have not heard it before." She gave it some thought, scrunching her shoulders as she reached for the answer.

"Tchaikovsky, 'None but the Lonely Heart'. I don't often play him I'm afraid."

"You speak as though you are committing some offense." He said, stepping back a bit when her face went blank and her back straighter. The woman appeared increasingly apprehensive of him with every word.

"I do not believe I am; it is simply how I speak. I am going to check on my ship's arrival time."

"If you are leaving on my account I will ask you to remain. I have already stated that you provide no disturbance." In reply she smiled; in it now Sarek noted a degree of emotion. Sarek's insistence that she stay seemed to finally relax her.

"You must forgive me; I—" she gestured at his face, "have met to Vulcans in the past. It is not often they seem really wishful to speak to me. "

"Many Vulcans live their entire lives never meeting a human. We appreciate solitude, silence." Folding his hands together, he paced towards the opposite wall in thought.

"If I'm not mistaken, you are Ambassador Sarek?" he looked up; Sarek nodded.

"I am."

"I am Perrin." She did not offer a hand as most humans would.

A station wide alert went off, turning on the red lights hidden in the ceilings. Sarek had intended to ask Perrin about her contacts with Vulcans, perhaps it would explain her playing, but his main concern was, always, following protocol. Perrin did not seem to be in any hurry; slowly putting away her violin, tightly pulling a cloth over top of it.

"Perrin; that was an emergency alert. We must leave immediately."

"Oui." She continued her slow pace. "They have been going off all week that I've been stranded here. I know it is nothing."

That did not convince Sarek. He went up the stairs, though slowly enough for Perrin to catch up, stopping when he heard her sigh. She began after him.

"From where we are, Ambassador, we should go to shuttle bay 47." She said. Quickly ascending, Perrin passed Sarek, after a respectful glance, who leaned against the rails to allow her to. His doing so came from not knowing the exact security protocols for Tau Ceti Station himself.

In the central hall there were several groups of people, mostly Starfleet, unmoved by the alarm. Three junior grade lieutenants played cards in the mess hall, waving at Perrin as she passed. They recognized Sarek with his cloak down. One offered a Vulcan salute to him. He did not return it; Perrin was fast and enough people were trying to get to the emergency shelters that he noted he could lose sight of her with a brief distraction.

"Hey, hey, HEY!" One of the card players had come after them. He nearly grabbed onto Sarek cloak but snatched back his hand when Sarek finally stopped. Perrin looked back to see whose attention the officer was trying to get, and stopped too.

"Sorry; this isn't," he coughed "this isn't a, uh, emergency thing guys; I mean sir—ma'am. It's Just the alert system malfunctioning again. If it's real we'll make an announcement."

"It is unwise of you to allow such an issue to persist." Perrin defended the lieutenant who she gave a pitying glance, though she kept a sizeable distance from Sarek as she rebutted him.

"Ambassador, please; this sector of space has not seen any sort of attack since the earliest days of the federation. I doubt there's really any need to be concerned, there are other ways of letting people know of an attack. " She looked up to him, her face sure. He conceded somewhat; her argument was not without logic. But a problem remained regardless. "I will look at your systems." He commanded to the officer. The man did not seem to know how to counter this. Sarek technically out ranked him, yet Sarek had no real authority aboard the station. He did not wait for action; Sarek left the central hall with Perrin now trailing him as their destination changed to one he knew well.

"You've been here before?" She questioned.

"Yes; 2.06 years ago." He did not elaborate. Sarek focused on his destination; the security station. He had also picked up on a third set of footfalls, trailing fast behind them. The lieutenant would have told someone to be on the look out for them, Sarek noted.

"Ensign—did you see an older Vulcan man come by here?" he heard them ask.

"Yep; he was headed back there sir." Their pace picked up. Hearing this, Sarek moved to the side of the hall and waited. The person turned out to be an admiral; Henry Daze, the head of Tau Ceti Station. He also looked annoyed with Sarek and refused to hide it.

"What's wrong with my station this time?" Admiral Daze held out his hands as though he were seeking enlightenment. Sarek extended a salute that was returned poorly, appearing closer to a peace sign.

"You speak as though there were no issues on my last visit." Sarek did not meet the man's gaze. I cannot, he thought and moved up his estimate for meditation. Admiral Daze's irritation faded as Sarek continued to avoid his eyes. His voice was sympathetic as he addressed him, "You are not wrong; I won't, however, have someone questioning _me_ , on my _ship_ , with my _crew_ around." He slid his hands over his hair. "Is this about the alarms; they will be fixed by someone soon. He's even Vulcan."

"When will they arrive?" asked Sarek.

"Sometime in the next 3 days."

"How familiar are they will federation security systems; Vulcan programing demands a different level of sophistication altogether from how federation software is constructed."

"He's only ever worked with federation computers. I'm sure he won't know as much as _you_ about our systems but he'll manage." Sarek reluctantly accepted this answer.

"Ambassador; let me escort you back—"

"That will not be necessary." Admiral Daze eyed Sarek for a bit then left, turning down towards the security station. His voice came over the speakers after a moment, announcing that the alert was purely a malfunction.

"33 mintues."

"I beg your pardon?" Perrin asked, confused. She looked down at a sticker on her violin case. It was a paper-thin clock, modeled after old earth analog watches.

"33 mintues from the alert's start to the Admiral's announcement."

"Ah." Perrin kept it at that.

"You may speak freely. You find my insistence on reason and protocol," Sarek paused to find the word, not accustomed to specifying emotional reactions. He had no need, mostly alone on Excaliba and being Vulcan.

"I find it appropriate, considering the person." She answered, gesturing towards him. With that gesture followed lithe recognition. Perrin seemed familiar in her manner to Sarek. Yet he had no real desire to inquire further as to why. It would be illogical; his ship was likely to be docking in the next hour based off his estimations in the kitchen. He surmised a re-review of the current iteration of the Federation's regulations concerning diplomatic missions would assist him greatly in his testimony before the council and his peers. And in centering his mind. Remain with Perrin; there was no logical or productive reason to.

She came to that conclusion as well.

"Ambassador; it has been an honor." Her eyes brightened enough for Sarek to guess her words were spoken truthfully. She pointed to a turbo lift. "I should return to my quarters and play. I had wanted to practice else where, but I couldn't bare to bother you."

"It is unlikely I will go back to the kitchens now."

"I'm afraid then I have no interest in returning there myself." She gave a small smile, tight and guarded. Sarek did note something as she'd walked over to the turbolifts: she carefully avoided touching anyone; her smiles to the crewmembers that waved to her, all human, were even more guarded. Strange, Sarek noted.


	3. Chapter 3

From her room Perrin could look over the bay. Though not the original, the golden gate bridge had been reconstructed from photographs managing to survive the Third World War. She felt the contrast was lovely compared to Starfleet's campus and admitted she had missed the view. She indulged herself in recalling the surge of excitement she felt the first time she saw it in person. But she brushed it away from her mind to focus again on what she needed. More mint tea.

Walking over to the replicator, Perrin heard something drop. I shouldn't have sat it there, she thought. A jar of rosin had slipped off the armrest when she rose from her chair. She scooped back in a chunk of it that broke off, setting it next to the replicator.

"Mint tea." She leaned in to the device as she spoke.

"Insufficient data."

"Mint tea, hot."

A glass materialized on the counter. She felt some frustration pricking away at her focus; just one missing word and it doesn't know how to cope, Perrin thought. Relaxing back into her chair, she moved on what she'd been memorizing. The song drifted into her head clearly and soon claimed all her attention.

Wide crowds gathered in view of the Bay while Perrin cleaned her bow, her polished violin sitting on a Starfleet issued towel at her feet. Their insignia reflected off the side of the wood clearly. The process, the progress, and the mint tea completed a ritual as sacred to her as any Vulcan mediation session. Sarek flashed into her mind for a second as she finally straightened up to play. Perrin had tried to save the last of her drink but she'd been careful with her cleaning, spending enough time inspecting the instrument for imperfections that the mug held just air by then. Perrin went to refill it.

"I need your copy; the Denobulan freighter I rode in on lost about almost half my stuff in a transporter jam." Another woman breezily demanded. She bounced into the room, flinging her carry on and case onto a second bed, the other by the chair already claimed by Perrin's things. By the time Perrin figured out what she might be talking about, the other woman had grabbed a roll of papers off a cabinet pushed near the back door.

"Mia; that's not the one. It's on top of my case." Mia turned and spotted it with glee, sheet music for "None but the Lonely Heart"; personally requested from the Federation President. He had stressed that Russian composers were underappreciated over the com when they spoke with him. Perrin and the quartet had practiced constantly to address his concerns when came time for them to preform. Mia and she had even pulled out their violins and played them on the spot when spotted each other in the courtyard of Starfleet Academy. Mia had doubled over laughing at a pair of Klingons looking as though Perrin and she had confirmed their worse fears about humans.

"What was that one, huh?" Mia started to unroll what she had originally picked up.

"A piece my mother taught me violin with."

"Oooh; what? I think this is the first I am hearing about a mother, or family." She scrambled for her own violin, flinging the case back onto the bed. Flattening the pages was difficult as they spent most of their time rolled up and as a memento in Perrin's luggage. Mia scanned the notes and marched through them, the tone slightly off, her strings not yet tuned.

"It's a bizarre version of Ciaccona." Mia looked up to her quizzically.

"There were a few things my mother just did not care for in Bach's version." Perrin grabbed the papers from her gently, suddenly realizing she'd never made copies.

* * *

Sarek had arrived on the campus earlier in evening, spending his first few days in San Francisco at the Vulcan embassy before volunteering to move to Starfleet's campus. The younger ones need its isolation more than I; Sarek had given that as his reason for doing so. Now he waited for the evening's event's to start in the Federation Senate. Beyond the chamber councils, the reception hall where he was ran the length of that and various other administrative offices and councilman chambers. Sarek had positioned himself in front of the council doors, almost as tall as the room, a focal point he did not often entertain. But there were those for whom he wanted to make it easier to find him. Sarek's meandering gathered a small group, everyone eager to hear the elderly Vulcan's opinion on regulation changes. Among Federation ambassadors, there were a select few voices granted more weight than others. Vulcan's always, decorated diplomats especially.

"I am afraid any position I take will be made known when the council convenes, not before." Sarek answered to any questions in that vein.

"Ambassador, nobody's a tattletale here." Replied one.

"Yet yours are not the only ears that can hear." Hearing Sarek's response, the Zaranite ambassador conceded.

The group discussed various bits of news, calling over other attendees with first hand knowledge of the events. Sarek paid a proper amount of attention; looking to one of his aides standing near the end of the reception in-between listening to each new piece of information. The aid, Tiv'ak, dressed in formal robes, spoke to no one. Sarek noted he would have to teach him to exchange necessary pleasantries. A few of the children allowed to attend stood across from Ti'vak, giggling when each hello, hi, extended hand, or smile was ignored. He, of all Sarek's aides, would find the practice especially illogical: his parents were a priest and a priestess respectively on Mount Seleya. Sarek directed him to vacate halfway through a conversation with a Bolian on Federation mining charters. Who Sarek was looking for would be made known; knowing a few seconds beforehand would give him no advantage behind a barrier of people.

The light of the room then slowly took on a gray tone. The skylights showed stars phasing in through the fading day. Around the room Sarek counted increasing numbers of people appearing anxious.

Why they were there could break precious alliances among species that counted on very certain modes of interaction, he noted. Sarek held no particular concerns regarding the debates, serving longer than most human lifetimes. He had seen many proposals come through. Logic would prevail, even on those worlds not in the habit of considering it.

Sarek followed Tiv'ak who had moved towards a small table of foods. Not hungry, Sarek's interest was in the podium just in front of it, backlit by the Federation logo. Few were gathered near it yet. The speaker was not due to arrive until past sunset, Sarek's most senior aid—besides Kavik—had informed him. Sarek had left him behind to continue editing a proposal for an all Vulcan scientific outpost on Excalbia that the speaker, the Federation President, would find acceptable. Sarek would need to oversee it through the first few months, as was logical considering his authorship of the proposal.

He saw no reason for the request to be turned down; the abilities of the Excalbia, as well as studies into their culture and biology would yield great advancements for the Federation. Vulcans alone, Sarek thought, will be able to maintain the necessary relations to insure the survival of the endeavor.

Another Vulcan diplomat, Sa'lak, currently stationed on Bajor to Sarek's knowledge walked passed him as he planned. Sarek watched him pass. He knew of him but met Sa'lak only once before.

"Ms. Perrin; Live long and prosper." This caught Sarek's attention. The same woman who he had met on Tau Ceti Station was sitting on a stage between two wide columns, hidden until she stood up to return the greeting to Sa'lak with far more emotion than he'd seen her exhibit towards anyone on Tau Ceti. It still seemed subdued.

"As I hope you will Ambassador."

"I have not seen your father here." This remark wiped away her friendly expression; her emotions were completely guarded now.

"He has not attended these events for many years; so I have heard."

"Strange that you do not know."

"There are others that spend far more time with him than I; I'm often running across the galaxy playing." Sa'lak did not address her evasion; Sarek noted it. Instead of that, Sa'lak leaned down to observe Perrin's violin. Sarek could see Perrin's modest black dress reflected in it. He moved in slightly, brushing against a passing Starfleet officer that made his way to the stage as well. They apologized.

"Do you know any Vulcan meditation mantras?" Sa'lak inquired. The change in subject brought back warmth to Perrin's expression.

"None have been requested of me."

"I have a selection of popular mantras on a data crystal on my home in T'Paal. I will have my wife transfer the them to you."

"I would be happy to look them over." Sa'lak bowed in response and joined two other Vulcan ambassadors near a small display of previous Federation seals. Perrin watched him for a bit while picking few low notes like on a guitar. She laughed quietly and rejoined her group on stage.

The hall's lights dimmed. Perrin and her group shifted their instruments to a playing position.

"Before the President arrives, we would like to start off the night with a favorite of his, 'None but the Lonely Heart.'" Giving a thumbs up to the quartet after speaking, the Starfleet officer from earlier had now gathered together most of the attendants around the stage. As he stepped down off the raised stage to let the quartet start, the officer tripped into one of the waiters. The cellist raised off his chair enough for the officer to notice. "Just start." He muttered and was pulled up by the waiter. Everyone settled back in and the song began.

Sarek noted the song she'd played in the kitchen of Tau Ceti improved greatly from a group setting. The harmony of Perrin and the second violinist added to the sense of restrained emotion. The other two held back for most of the song, the cello only rising above the others for its solo towards the middle of the song.

As he listened, Perrin glanced over the crowd, finally seeing Sarek towards her left. Her eyes locked onto his before she took a breath and looked back towards crowd.

Not till the end did Sarek note the President entering the room under the cover of the concert. He was already at the podium clapping along with the others when the song was over when the rest of the room became aware. Sarek saw that a private audience might be needed to discuss his proposal; the President gave no opening for a casual meeting.

His speech addressed some of the main concerns of the crowds, though no specifics were offered on the Ferenginar incident. Tim Valor stood to his right. Valor remained there, even when the President left, guarded by several close advisors from further questions. Speaking to Valor would be the fastest way to have his concerns reach the President, Sarek mused. Sarek looked back at the stage mostly in the course of searching for his Ti'vak, half-recognizing the tune they picked up after the speech. Perrin looked back in his direction, a bit beyond his shoulder, then focused intently on her playing. Suddenly she seemed to crawl behind the others. They noticed, the other violinist gabbing her bow into Perrin's jaw as she pulled it across the strings. It took a few more beats, but Perrin's playing caught up to the group. Sarek turned his head. Beyond him was Tim Valor, still where he was but discussing the speech with a councilmember.

"Now I'm not one to skirt the rules; I'll have to reprimand myself." He teased the councilmember.


	4. Chapter 4

_Spock I have not seen you here; where are you? Did you not come because of me? Do you hate; no, he is too logical for that. Amanda, you must have hated... I hate that I cannot…I want to tell you how proud I am; No, NO! I must reign in these thoughts. I will not jeopardize my reputation. Endure. You are Vulcan. Soon you will be away from this place again, back to Excalbia. Again please, show me Amanda; Skon, Sybok, Michael, everyone dead. Let me have them back. PLEASE!"_

Sarek felt his mind return to calm as he opened his eyes.

Sarek had sensed clutter blocking his mind over the morning, reason becoming a difficult thing to grasp. Logic showed him his time on Excalibia would affect his ability to filter out the heavy emotions of the multitude of humans and other expressive species surrounding him again. Against waves of dissent and lack of practice, his discipline carved through to churn back the gushing flow to still waters.

Sarek had testified during that morning's debate. He recalled little dissent. There was no reason as yet any final polices would be extrapolated from the given testimonies, and only those whose recollections felt dangerously close to pointing out a real need for change were shouted down. Sarek was not among such voices; to dissent facts would be illogical.

He carried his mediation candle and set it into a small box on a dresser. Carved around the box was Vulcan script of Surak's teachings. Sarek studied the words a moment to further center himself.

Shouting boomed into his quarters. Once again, Sarek thought; the fifth time in the course of 3.06 hours. Never coming from the same room, slowly marching down the corridor towards his quarters. The Starfleet cadets, those that hadn't been swept out like the previous Betazoid occupant of Sarek's current residence, had yet to hone the professionalism of experience to realize that whatever partying they normally indulged in, as Sarek assumed the shouting to be, was out of place given the conference.

But there was no partying. Sarek's door opened without warning, three freshman cadets from across the hall following behind the ensign with threats.

"I'll need you to stay there; this is all according to protocol." He pushed them back to their room and continued into Sarek's quarters. Deducing he was preforming a search, Sarek watched the ensign's neck closely. If he proceeds outside of Starfleet's typical search parameters, Sarek thought; he had overstepped already in coming in without provocation.

"Why have you entered my quarters?"

"Sir, have you invited any guests to your room in the last few hours?" The ensign tossed out the question as he shuffled Sarek's robes hanging in the closet to search there as well.

"I do not keep my guests in my pockets for safekeeping."

Sarek held his hands in front of him when the ensign faced him. He is distressed, Sarek noted. The ensign smoothed his uniform with a glare, and started knocking on the walls. He had been displaying a heightened state of paranoia throughout his search.

"Did you have any guests over?" The ensign asked.

"I have not." He replied.

The bathroom was searched last; Sarek could make out the toilet lid being lifted. He ran down a list of all known species that could fit into such a small space. How strange, he thought; none are known to be hostile in anyway.

"Have you seen any Algeans around?"

"I have not." The Algeans were a tall, humanoid species, Sarek noted; they would not fix into an Earth toilet.

The ensign left without any further acknowledgement of him. Sarek then heard loud shouts from the room to his left. Whoever occupied the room mostly practiced their music when Sarek was in his quarters to hear them; by the sound Sarek had assumed it was Perrin and the other woman from the concert. Hearing her voice now, he discovered that was correct.

The ensign's zealousness was a notable issue for his search, Sarek mused. Even humans appreciated it only to a point. Perrin sounded to have reached it.

His Algean comment lingered on Sarek's mind.

By the looks of the ensign Starfleet and the Federation had no grasp on the situation with the missing Algeans. Sarek, however, sensed he might be able to do more for the situation. "Ambassador Salla." He muttered, leaving his quarters, quickly glancing into Perrin's room as he passed it. She does not wish him to note something about her, Sarek mused. Perrin was turned from the ensign, boring her sight into a small mug near her room's replicator unit.

"We're not traitors." He caught her say as he went on.

The dormitory where Sarek had been moved to was a short way from his destination. He made no request for transportation and walked there instead, to Starfleet's Medical College.

* * *

Its campus had a healing affect of its own. The old trees hovering shade onto every pathway leading about the two buildings making up the college lowered the humid heat to something humans would have found pleasing; Sarek focused on his body's internal temperature and raised it slightly to accommodate. Trees and other flora accented the cubistic architecture that cut a sharp contrast against them. Between the two was the struggle of all evolving species between growing and remaining anchored to what has been though the building was unyielding in appearance. The angles reminded him of Vulcan, though the light green marble exterior of the building was not something Vulcans favored.

During the course of the debates, Starfleet's usual activities had been stunted. Except for all necessary personnel, classes had been cancelled to keep students and staff off campus. It still functioned as a teaching hospital though only the actual doctoral staff remained. Well used in that regard, two wayward cadets limped towards the building, coming up a ledge by the San Francisco Bay. A stretcher came out with some of the remaining nursing staff. Sarek found it curious to see one grab the curly haired cadet and lie him down forcefully.

"Again; AGAIN!" They shouted.

"Sorry." Sarek barely heard the cadet's regret-filled reply.

He decided to follow behind them; the entrance they came through seemed to lead where he wanted. "Emergency Care Unit Entrance and Temporary Staff Offices" read a sign near it. Sarek noted drops of red blood streaking behind the stretcher as he entered and walked down the wing to another sign detailing a list of temporary staff. Room 413, Admiral Davis. He went and waited. He'd sat himself at one of the rows of tables across from Davis's desk before the Admiral came in and spotted him.

"Ambassador Sarek; you've caught me at a good time. Yes, yes; very good." Davis flashed a big smile towards Sarek. He laughed, catching his breath as he started again on rearranging a group of PADDs piled haphazardly on his desk.

"Oh what I would pay for the privilege; I taught some fascinating people in my life, but you." Davis clapped at the thought.

"Money is an obsolete concept among even humans." Sarek replied.

"But the expression stands; yes, yes." Davis left the PADDs and stared curiously at Sarek. "And why are you sitting there, in my classroom?"

"Ambassador Salla; where was he being reassigned?"

"Algea." Davis's response sounded as regretful as the cadet's; more so. "A good man; not as… military as Andorians usually come. Last we spoke, about three weeks ago, he was on Ferenginar, trying to get a ride on an Orion starship. For whatever reason the _USS Vasa_ was being delayed so; yes, yes. I told him to wait, but—. I didn't hear back from him after that."

"Thank you." Sarek replied with a human response and rose, not needing to know anything more to aid his conclusion.

"Live long and prosper." Sarek added before he left, hearing Davis call to him somberly as he went, "Didn't take much for you to figure it out; yes, yes. I would have paid with the world."

Whatever treatment was being given, the cadet from earlier screamed as he underwent it. Sarek decided to avoid going back towards the Emergency Care Unit. From the outside, he'd noted another entrance towards the east wing of the building; he would head towards that direction. Staying on the main halls usually led towards the exits.

For some distance Sarek sensed no one else. All the noise seemed to be located behind him; the rest of the building appeared predominantly vacant. It was a welcome change—like the streets of ShiKahr at dawn, though any time of day mostly saw little congestion. He noted the wall displays lit up as he passed, showing a small map of the building with his location marked by a walking stickman. Sarek turned left onto the east wing; following straight down appeared to lead him out both from his sight and from the display.

The wing was dedicated to experimental research and displays honoring past students and Starfleet personnel. Dates on the various memorabilia became more recent as he closed in to the exit.

Before the doors, two wall height cases held models of a few medical ships along with photos and plaques. Sarek walked a little closer, noticing something for _Comparative Alien Physiology_ by Dr. Leonard McCoy. One of Spock's associates, Sarek recalled. He remained in Dr. McCoy's debt for his efforts prior to the Babel Conference. Illogical perhaps, but Sarek was wiling to admit to it considering the consistent assistance the doctor had provided his family.

A small panel detailed the research that went into writing the book, next to that was a copy of it and a photo. In it, Dr. McCoy looked aged compared to Sarek though much younger than Sarek in truth. But the man smiled with a great deal of energy, surrounded by hundreds of people and Spock in the photo. Spock stood back though closely watching Dr. McCoy. True to his Vulcan half, Sarek's son did not bear the years as Dr. McCoy had, except for a bit of gray in his hair.

Sarek noted someone else, hidden behind a surge of people rushing to McCoy. She looked subdued, even more guarded. It was Perrin in the uniform of a Starfleet Medical student.


	5. Chapter 5

Perrin juggled her mug of mint tea on the side of the thin tray spat out by the cafeteria replicators. They offered enough space for whatever food had been requested; there was no place for a drink. Perrin saw it as a bizarre oversight, like allowing a power hungry ensign to romp through anyone's room without check. Perrin pushed away the irritating thought not feeling it was productive. She didn't care enough to dwell on it or the disproportionate trays. She also wasn't going to need to use the cafeteria beyond the next three days and even then Perrin always tried to eat in her room. The powers that be didn't like it, she thought, but she wasn't a student and she did her best to hide the evidence. She smiled that the thought of security breaking down her door for replicating Dizé mile one too many times. She wished the debates had been held in Paris—Perrin hadn't had the flakey donut in a while. Perrin went out following Mia who trekked on ahead of her. The cafeteria had filled out into the patio and adjoining classrooms with the conference goers.

Mia led into a Federation History classroom where the rest of the quartet had settled. A few of the Starfleet officers waylaid for the debates went through the data on the computers, questioning each other. The lowest ranked seemed to do best; school days must still be rattling around their heads, Perrin thought, amused as the senior officers cursed them.

Darin and Mia both had filled up their plates with desert. Their harpist, Abe, had a small salad. He usually parceled out his meals; salad, meat, bread. He went back for each separate bit; it couldn't all be eaten at once. Perrin learned his routine quickly in the few months she'd been with the group.

"Hey." Darrin caught her attention, mouth full of ice cream. She listened.

"What's with the tea?" She wasn't surprised. Mint tea was all they'd seen her drink and her habit caught the eye of the last three orchestras, and two traveling musicals she'd worked with.

Perrin held an answer and just like the others, the quartet moved on.

Suddenly, another question seemed to strike him.

"Hey, does anyone know that Vulcan- he was standing right near the stage?" Everyone looked confused except Perrin. But she didn't speak, worried about Darrin's habit of reading into things.

With no one saying anything, Darrin cheered.

"Jeez; I think that was our best performance then. Never thought I'd see the day when my little merry band was bringing Vulcans to tears." He did not even blink, much less cry, Perrin recalled silently. Sarek had stood listening up to the fading echoes with a degree of focus that somewhat unnerved her, but he never showed the faintest bit of emotion. She saw no way tell if he'd been moved or mulling the technical aspects of the song. She knew better than most it could have been either. She turned away from the memories that made her sure.

Suddenly there was red in her eye. Perrin blinked it away and was shocked to see Darrin now convulsing in pain on the ground, some of the others in the classroom gathered around him. She grabbed two small devices from a Starfleet Medical first aid kit by a mapping table near the center of the room. One was a tricorder she had powered up as she crawled over the desk to look Darrin over.

The injury was not as severe as she'd feared. Through the palm of his left hand, a fork had pinched into the soft tissue; the tricorder picked up no bone damage. Blood ran rapidly from the wound; Perrin speculated he might have been on some form of blood thinner due to the disproportionate amount of bleeding. He has headaches from time to time—aspirin, she concluded. The tricorder picked up small traces of it in the blood pouring from the wound.

To use the second device, a cellular regenerator, Perrin had to remove the fork. Darrin could see her reaching for it and yanked his hand away.

"No, no doctor stuff. Just get my mother to do it."

"God Darrin, she's in a completely different quadrant of the galaxy!" Screamed Mia, who was holding his head steady. She then locked down his arm, holding it within Perrin's reach.

Darrin screamed as Perrin weaned it out. Ripping it out might minimize his pain, she knew, but she'd risk accidentally pulling it out at an angle and damaging more tissue. She kept a napkin pressed down between the skin and fork as she slowly took it out, carefully letting it come out the way it went in.

After that, the injury was repaired easily. The fork was tossed into the trash with a few bloody napkins used to clean up the mess. Despite appearances, Darrin's blood levels appeared to be mostly fine and he refused to go to Starfleet Medical to be checked up. This bothered Perrin.

Take him there, take him there; she could not wipe the words from her mind. Not seeking proper medical attention could be a death sentence. She knew. She'd seen this in action: her mother; he—why she set it aside and just played her violin. Darrin is fine, she began to repeat in her mind to ease away her anxiety.

"Uh…" Darrin drawled off. Unfocused for a few more minutes, he stared at his hand before looking at Perrin with relief. This brought her back and fully brushed away her concerns. "Thanks." He whispered. Perrin smiled in response.

The room returned to normal; one of the cafeteria staff came in and wiped off the rest of the blood on the furniture. The small mechanism they used to do so also absorbed out the stains over Perrin's jeans and Darrin's whole outfit too.

"How did that even happen?" Everyone at the table asked at once, when a few minutes had passed. No one ate; no one looked like they would be.

"I don't know. Something snagged my foot, I think." Darrin looked around the room as though whatever did it would be marked guilty. No one looked concerned by then, especially a group of Klingons slurping down tentacles. Perrin had been alarmed somewhat when they seemed to enjoy Darrin's earlier screams as a game. Their species reminded her of a vase of the Furies in her family home's library. She'd always loved it; one could tell what their purpose was, they wore their hearts on their sleeves.

"You know your way around a tricorder." Darrin drew himself towards Perrin. She kept her answer distant.

He expected that and didn't pry further as with his question about the mint tea.

The others looked ready to keep picking at her, which rose again a feeling of relief that Thomas—who she'd been replacing for a while—would be coming back and saving her from dodging questions. But the thought gave her some guilt; they meant it to be nice. First taking a quick sip of her tea, she began clean up.

Perrin' was still gathering up her stuff when an alarm blared through the building, the same red lights and sounds she'd learned by heart on Tau Ceti. It had everyone else rushing to leave; it had her calmly remembering she needed to grab her PADD from her room. Some calls from the Palais Garner Orchestra were sitting unanswered concerning an opening. She wanted to do some research before reaching a decision.

"Aren't you coming?" The rest of the quartet shouted back to her at the doorway. Before she responded, some of the cadets filling out into the hall grabbed them, pushing them through. They piled up by a row of glass panels cut into the classroom wall; Perrin mouthed that she would be fine. She did not pick up her pace and considered her future.

The Palais Garner was a beautiful opera house her mother had worked for when she was young. Perrin could stand thinking about her for much longer than her father, since her mother had died in the glow of Perrin's early childhood. Times that brought a smile when considered in isolation, she thought, now piling up the rest of the left-behind dishes she could carry on her own tray. The times that followed she hadn't considered in years. It would be a waist of emotion.

Still no explosions, but Perrin wasn't anticipating any. She considered going back to clear the rest of the tables, and scanning over the mess long enough convinced her.

* * *

Sarek was crossing back to the council chambers, where the debates were held, but paused after noting his aides coming to meet him ahead of hundreds of others exiting every building in the immediate area. They all circled around him, a crimson blockade that steered most people well away. Tiv'ak faced Sarek and handed over a handheld communicator, a few messages marked on the screen—one from the Vulcan High Council, one from Spock, another from Reynard Landover. The former two where brief, acknowledging his return as was customary for his rank and Vulcan familial obligations respectively. He noted several new gray hairs on his son since last they contacted each other and since he'd had taken the photo with McCoy that was at Starfleet Medical.

Landover's message was rambling; Sarek hid back when others began to eye him as Landover shouted at points in his message. His caretaker stood tensely just out of frame.

The message was almost over: "Sarek old friend; I want you to think of me then, I wish I could remain the man I was. My dear Perrin, keep an eye out on her. She's my only child—I shouldn't have pushed her away. I shouldn't have said those things to" he sobbed "her. I hear she's there too. Matty said she was wonderful, plays just like her mother." The transmission cut.

Winds rolling off the bay sprinkled bits of water onto Sarek's skin. Its coldness did not strike him like the shaded path leading to Starfleet Medical College earlier; he was considering his old associate's words.

The similarity in their iris coloration as well as hair and prominence of both's zygomatic bones provided a further case for their relation, Sarek noted as he realized his sense of familiarity with Perrin on Tau Ceti came from her relation to Reynard. Yet father and daughter had spent no time together for an indeterminate period of significant length, the message suggested. Most humans would have found the estrangement a negative experience; Sarek speculated whether Landover's condition and age might add to that.

Sarek began to scan the grounds for Perrin. He'd noted her wearing early 21st century style jeans and a black button down shirt during the ensign's search. The look was more traditional than anything worn by the non-uniformed civilians Sarek saw rushing around to gather who they knew together. His aides parted to allow a clearer view into the crowds filing up the lawn and pushed apart a path for him back to the dormitory.

Perrin's quartet was lounging by a flag pole; Sarek noted them as he approached the dormitory. They would be the most logical reference for her current location, Sarek thought. They looked frightened as Sarek came up to them.

"I swear I was just joking about that comment earlier." Darrin sputtered when Sarek stopped in front of him. Not understanding, Sarek ignored his words.

"There is another human woman who preforms with you: Perrin. I will know where she is."

"Uh; we last saw her inside but she's probably out by now. She didn't seem to think the alarm was a big deal." Most likely too accustomed to alarms meaning nothing from Tau Ceti Station, mused Sarek. He left the quartet, Darrin trying to catch up with him for a bit as Sarek's aides contorted their positions to block his approach.

"I didn't mean it!" Darrin's shout slipped past Sarek who was focused on a new figure in a row of security personnel blocking the doors to the dormitory.

"Explain were you searching for Alegans." The ensign from that morning looked at Sarek with fear as Sarek addressed him forcefully.

* * *

Perrin had grabbed her PADD, also her violin case while she was at it. She decided to she would sit down by the bay, grab a taxi to head to Archer Park over the bridge to avoid distractions while she practiced. Maybe I'll bring up some of those Vulcan Mantras, and play a few before we officially start tonight, she considered. Sa'lak's wife had transferred them only three hours after Sa'lak spoke with Perrin. I wonder, she thought, what music Sarek might like, thinking of the ambassador again. Perrin recalled from school that his wife had been human; she could live the rest of her life on the amusement it would bring her to hear a Vulcan request Frère Jacques. But remembering which Vulcan, she tossed away the idea out of respect.

The alarm still rung, while the wall panels were now blacked out, no longer announcing campus events or showing feed from the debates. Still no fire, Perrin repeated to herself. She wasn't reassured. It was one thing to ignore an alarm when everyone else did as well as on Tau Ceti; the halls were completely void now as she picked up her pace towards the study stations. Another thing when no one else agrees that there's nothing wrong, Perrin finished her thought with concern. The intended affect of the alarms was being reintroduced to her.

A noise bounced up from behind.

Three gray skinned aliens with jutting jaws that allowed a fine trail of yellow mucus to roll onto their necks grabbed for Perrin after she whisked to face the sound. They looked like they had been ducking into an empty dorm room when she noticed them; now they clawed at her face and arms. A rush of fear made her alert; Perrin used it to move away from their grip.

Smashing her PADD into the wall display as a distraction, sparks exploded out, she ran for an exit. As she passed by an intersecting hall, a team of security officers came around. All their focus was on Perrin for a moment until they noticed the aliens rubbing at their eyes, attempting to keep after Perrin.

"Get her out." The tall Caitian commander growled as one of the others rushed Perrin from the dorms. They went up through the lobby and out to the south lawn. She was surprised to see Sarek arguing with the ensign from earlier beyond the exit as they came up to it. He looked intimidated by the older Vulcan's pose, the effect strengthened by six other Vulcans looking equally unmoved.

"You do not know if the building has been evacuated completely?" Sarek asked loudly enough that Perrin heard him as they passed through the doors.

Sarek glanced over at Perrin and the accompanying officer guiding her out. The ensign squeaked back a reply that Sarek ignored; He fell behind her, his hand reaching for her when she was pushed into a waiting hovercar.

"Where are you taking her?" The officer scooted in next to her, shutting the door on Sarek's question. As the hovercar shot up into the air she could see Sarek still focused on them. He seemed concerned, his eyes narrowed and his lips pursed. Why was he looking for me, Perrin thought through her fear.


	6. Chapter 6

On a view screen hidden beneath the veneer of a Louis XVI desk, Perrin watched one of Sarek's speeches during the debates. He was questioning an Andorian delegate on his views.

"Andoria might find the regulations in and of themselves insulting but based on the events on Fereginar, the Federation must take this time to look into whether its representatives are safe."

"Do you not trust us? We were one of the founding species of the federation, green skin!" Shouted an Andorian standing in the center of the Federation Council Chambers.

"Your vulgar nicknames do little to support your case, Shukar." Replied Sarek bluntly. The video ended there, the screen blinking back to a library of clips from the recent debates stored in the Federation's public files. She'd already gone through a few, starting with clips from after she was taken to Paris. Finishing those quickly and finding no real information on what had occurred the day she was attacked, she had started looking at the clips concerning Sarek.

Perrin hated to even think it, seeing him speak before hundreds of skilled diplomats and being above them all in talent, but she still believed the Vulcan was concerned for her as she'd been taken from the dorms. She tapped the screen back to it façade as an ordinary desk, and went to sit on the edge of her bed. Leaning against one of the post of the ornate bed frame helped wipe away some of her stress at not knowing what would happen next or where she was.

Perrin had some idea that she might in the President's Executive Offices, about a quarter mile from the Effiel Tower, which appeared close by from the view of her room. There would be no chance of running into any non-Federation or Starfleet personnel beyond the President's own family here. Anyone she appealed to and had appealed was first and foremost concerned with his or her place on the chain of command. She pushed it all away a burst of disgust.

A few hours passed as she considered what she might do. Replicators—programmed to limit what Perrin could request—and an on suite bathroom saw to it that she spent most of her time without anyone coming in. She could request someone over the com but outside of that, it had been rare over the last four days for anyone to come in. Playing her violin, practicing for a concert on Risa that would have or might still wrap up her tour with Darrin and the others, limited Perrin growing restlessness but not enough. Perrin soon found rearranging the furniture to be more relaxing than sitting around. She moved a large wardrobe out of the way of the sunlight; it created a slim shadow at night that appeared like someone standing in the corner of the room. The rest of the decorative pieces she pushed into a closet.

Music was pleasant but rearranging everything gave a sense of control over her circumstances Perrin desperately wanted.

"I rather liked those paintings." An older Trill man who she recognized as the President looked disappointed to see none of the paintings, clocks, and such originally filling out the room. He passed Perrin and sat himself in a stuffed lounge chair facing the French windows.

"You can have your staff put them back when I leave." She responded careful to keep a little of her annoyance in her voice. The President sighed in response. She noticed the spots along his temples stood out a lot more than they generally did on most Trills. Sunlight coming in brought out a waxy look to his skin.

"I hope you don't believe you will be leaving anytime soon; you shouldn't work yourself up." He stated.

"And I hope we aren't going the way of Romulans." Perrin stood straight and marched over to him. "Give me an explanation for why I must stay or let me go."

"It's classified. You should understand that from your father." Replied the President, coldly. Perrin turned away.

It had been years since anyone made the connection between her and her father, Ambassador Reynard Landover. It was not the Federation's policy to mention family members in relation to diplomatic scandals. Perrin had also rarely listed her real last name, instead using her mother's maiden name. A flush of shame hit her with the reminder of her father.

"In any case, I'm here because my staff could not tell me the last time anyone checked up on you; it was two days ago." He pointed to her eyes. "You don't look well. I can have a therapist come in an talk with you—"

"No; I am fine." Perrin gritted her teeth. She wanted him gone.

The President looked her over and nodded. He left, the spots on his skin looking even starker than when he first came in.

* * *

Sarek wore his heaviest cloak though the human man next to him wore just the usual Starfleet outfit with only a thin Captain's jacket thrown over it. The river running beneath them, hidden by the bridge, added to the coldness of the morning and the sun had not yet escaped the low clouds on the horizon.

"I can't believe that runt—on like that in front of you!" the man barked.

"Captain Anthony, it was a temporary misconception on your son's part. I believe it has been corrected." Replied Sarek.

"I hope so. I hope so. Welp, she should be there." Captain Anthony pointed to a towering building, the President's Executive Offices, near the end of the bridge.

"Though boy, I sometimes feel like having another kid the way he carries on like the King of England!" Anthony huffed. "If I'm not being a nuisance Ambassador, you ever plan to marry again, have another kid?"

"Are you suggesting Spock was a mistake?"Anthony looked alarmed at Sarek's reply.

"Oh no, not at all. He's one of starlet's finest. I was just making conversation; ignore me." But Sarek decided to answer his question.

"I also find Spock's accomplishments satisfactory. And marriage has already, in him, completed its purpose for me; there is no logical reason to for me to remarry."

Both men continued in silence, parting at the statue that marked the main entrance to the building. Anthony settled himself on the rim of its widen base, studying the figure at the center holding scales. Sarek glanced at him with curiosity as he went in.

He was shown right away to the President's private meeting room. A few Trill tapestries covered the walls and both an Earth and a Trill piano filled up the unused space in the left of the room. Sarek moved to a low couch facing a single padded chair. The president came in shortly thereafter and sat there across from Sarek. He had a PADD in one hand, and Sarek could make out that it was his proposal for an all Vulcan post on Excalibia.

"I have come on a separate matter." The President looked up, placing the PADD on a low shelf behind him.

"Oh?"

"You are holding a human woman here." The Trill laughed in response.

"I'm surprised you're indulging conspiracy theorist, Ambassador Sarek."

"Perrin Landover. I had little reason to believe the information was not true as it came from one who escorted her here personally." Countered Sarek. Noting the Trill's change from light to serious at her name confirmed his suspicions.

"What are you aware of concerning her?"

"I am aware that she is currently the only witness to a group of Algean intruders during the debates 4 days and 13 hours ago. She has not been sighted since that event." Answered Sarek.

The president stared vacantly at Sarek for a while, tapping his fingers on the armrest. Sarek noted some hesitation in his expression. The President bit on his lip as he continued considering what Sarek had told him. Finally, he spoke.

"Yes, she is here. But this is the best place for her to be, for hers and the Federation's safety Ambassador Sarek."

"I must challenge that statement, Mr. President. Vulcan will be the safest place to be for Ms. Landover; it is unexpected, well guarded, and any off-worlders will be easy to identify."

"Sarek," the President held up his hands, "why do you care about all this? Was she related to Amanda?" Upon mentioning her name, he looked apologetic. Sarek ignored it.

"I know of her father from negotiations with the Legarians. He has asked to me look after her. As a personal favor."

The President considered this. "Vulcan would be ideal." He consented.

"I have heard there will be a meeting with the Algean government here in Paris concerning the recent fighting. There are those that would find it a suitable cover to harm Perrin in some way." This statement by Sarek resolved the President's concern.

"I had been thinking about that as well; well, you can take her to Vulcan but I will insist on a security team being assigned to her."  
"Nothing that will attract attention." Replied Sarek.

"No, no. I'll see if I we can make sure they're all Vulcan too."

"That would be logical."

* * *

One of the Federation's public files concerning Tim Valor's appointment as Head of The Federation Bureau of Planetary Treaties covered the top of the desk as Perrin hadn't deactivated the viewscreen. She had opened one of the windows to drag her fingers across the force field just beyond where the glass was, at a stalemate with where to move a wide bookcase so that it didn't offset the bed and chairs. A static cloud of violet sparks danced where her fingers traced. Perrin was staring down now at a Starfleet captain who had been flicking the marble legs of a statue for the last thirty minutes or so not noticing her when he did occasionally look up. She hadn't seen where he came from just that when she came back from replicating a fresh batch of mint tea he was there. Sipping it lightly, she considered how to get out.

Perhaps I could call Dr. McCoy, she thought. But as with an earlier consideration of her father or his former chief of staff, she swept away the thought with the rise of old memories thinking of them brought.

Surely the problem is that I do not know why I am here at all, Perrin thought. That it was in relation to the intruders was something she'd considered but as she couldn't even place the species, Perrin did not know how to appeal that letting her go was no danger. She buried her face in the shawl she'd thrown over her shoulders, nearing the bottom of her will to continue believing she could turn the situation around.

"May I enter?" Sarek's voice came from the hall outside her room. Perrin was shocked but also greedy for someone whom might take her side in things. She thought again of him following through the crowds after her.

"Oh yes, please do Ambassador. " Perrin went to the door.

Sarek had taken off his cloak and had it in his hand. When he entered, he laid it on the desk, blotting out the image of Valor that Perrin realized she'd been avoiding glancing at since she'd brought up the video. His clothes were a lot simpler then she'd seen him wear up to that point. He still wore the heavy pendant that rested over all his outfits but it didn't overwhelm the deep blue suit he had on today. The top looked almost like a shawl with its stiff folds along his waist.

Sarek stood with his hands folded and an expression that offered nothing in the way of his intentions.

"Sarek." Perrin caught herself. "Ambassador Sarek, I am not sure if you are aware of what is going on here but please—"

"I am aware that you are being kept here as a safety measure." His wording disappointed her. She began to look away.

"Let me assuage your fears; I do not believe your staying here will ultimately be safe. I will take you to Vulcan, if you will allow it."

"How will I spend my stay there; in a similarly locked room?" Perrin proudly asked. Sarek's arrival was becoming more of the same. Reason, she began to chant the word in her mind; Vulcans were perhaps the only species a rational argument had total sway over. She focused on his response.

Sarek shifted his eyes towards the wallpaper. "You will not find such chaotic motifs anywhere on Vulcan." He paused. "Logical precautions will have be taken but there is no need for total confinement nor isolation." At that, Perrin looked at her shirt and smoothed it down. The action was neutral enough to keep her relief at bay. Her respect for Sarek had not been misplaced, she thought happily. She admitted her temporary worry and considered what to do next.


	7. Chapter 7

Night now, Perrin had been following Sarek from the President's Executive Offices with a stiff pace that came unnaturally to her. Perrin kept next to him as they navigated through a busy port just outside Paris. Though Federation ships did occasionally pass through here, it was mostly for personal spacecraft and chartered ships. She looked out to them rushing through the building, directed by holographic markers and automatic docking systems away from near crashes and from misaligning with the small landing areas scattered everywhere. With nighttime starting, the higher up ships glittered with little dots of light on their hulls to seem like runaway stars swaying over everything.

Sarek walked over to a smaller Vulcan cruiser.

"Sarek! Hey!" A shout came over from a small transport ship docked nearby from a lanky human. He waved to Sarek. Perrin tried to give no reaction to this; that would be strange as she looked now. Sarek nodded with a quick salute.

"Where's Kavik?" Asked the man, still shouting though Perrin was relieved he wasn't going to come over.

"He is on Vulcan. Suurok will be accompanying me." Sarek pointed to Perrin who attempted his earlier salute, putting down her left hand before she could do so with both. It would seem too eager, she thought. But the man was swept onto the ship after its doors finally opened, before he could continue the conversation. Perrin was relieved; she didn't make a good Vulcan.

She was also relieved that there were no other Vulcans there besides Sarek. If she kept her wig from flying off every time a new subspace field sent out distorted ripples of gravity through the port or her face from showing her nervousness from the deceptions both she and Sarek had to do, who stepped back closer to her and pulled on the front of her floor length robes, really one of Sarek's own longer tunics, she felt me could keep away suspicion.

"Keep it unwrinkled. No Vulcan would allow such a display of thoughtlessness." She looked around herself quickly and noticed the shoulders were bunched up. The fabric must have caught under one of my bra straps, Perrin thought. She grabbed the sleeves with her fingers and un-tucked it as Sarek discreetly looked her over. He gave a slight nod.

The Federation allowed her transfer to Vulcan. When Sarek had showed up she'd wondered if it was half-cocked idea. Apparently not, Perrin had thought with irony when they explained how they intended she get there. Taking a personal ship, Sarek's flown in by an aide, was logical. Disguising her as one of his Vulcan aides was troublesome were anyone observant enough to note her pink skin and unslanted eyebrows. The wig was long enough to cover the tips of her ears. Then again, she thought, Sarek had rushed them through Paris in a blacked out hovercar, and through customs with an emergency clearance that absolved any closer looks from security. But they'd warned Sarek of one final hurdle as they entered the port—contamination sweeps.

"They'll have it done it a bit sir, someone will let you know." One of the security personnel had told them. Now, they were both stuck waiting out the sweep in view of everyone. Seems more crowded when you're waiting to be spotted, Perrin thought with growing worry of just that. She choked back the feeling when she felt her palms becoming slick.

Sarek pursed his lips as he looked over everything.

"How strange." His words drifted out. Perrin asked what was wrong in the most Vulcan way she could think of; a raised eyebrow.

"I sense another seemingly Vulcan mind here, yet" he paused. "Most depart directly from the embassy." In response Perrin began to search for them too.

Not a Federation port, it was still crowded with multitudes of species that crowded through and blended together in a mass of alien features ranging from obvious to just human enough. The scope made it difficult for Perrin to digest individual people. She watched the less dense bars and empty bays where no ships were docked; mostly younger humans and couples there.

Pointed ears.

"Contamination sweep is complete. We hope you enjoyed your stay here on United Earth. _J'espère que vous reviendrez_." Sarek moved behind Perrin, and she quickly led into the ship.

The other Vulcan, coming out of a lounge, watched Sarek's ship move out of the port and on to Vulcan.

* * *

Beyond a small bedroom and a lounge area, Sarek's personal ship had the personal space of a shuttle. The other areas seemed to consist of the engine room taking up the back end of the ship, and the bridge, taking up the front end. Everything could be viewed as they'd entered through the airlock. Perrin ran her hand over swirled scripts embedded into the walls, running down wood-like beams arching over the interior. The script repeated all over the ship with subtle variations. She liked it; it was a decorative flourish that she was starting to realize suited Sarek. She could not help comparisons with her father who often wore jeans to work. Quickly, she skirted away the thought.

Perrin walked onto the bridge. Acknowledging her with a quick glance Sarek went back to setting a course while they still hovered in the pull of Earth's gravity. On the viewscreen she could see the same graceful script labeled alongside different constellations. Sarek highlighted one and the screen zoomed in, creating an opaque image of the systems until whatever information Sarek had imputed narrowed it down to one planet.

"I don't remember meeting any diplomats that could fly their own ships." Perrin remarked. She had been required to learn a bit; another train of memories flitted past her mind uncomfortably.

"Ambassador Taylor has that capability as he was a helmsman on the _USS Pegasus."_ Replied Sarek, not looking up. "I know a little from what my son taught me after leaving Starfleet."

"Will we be meeting your son on Vulcan?" She asked, curious. She felt it was a rare opening to learn about something personal and she was inclined to know more about Sarek despite her father's trust in him. Don't think about him, she reminded herself.

The ship was entering warp drive; now Sarek faced her.

"I have not requested him to and he is unlikely to do so without my invitation."

"He respects you." Perrin stated, though she saw his face change and sensed that was not completely due to agreement.

"He is aware that my work is important and not to be disturbed." She watched closely Sarek's motions. His eyes were still on her but they seemed shallower to her as if he was being pulled away by a moment; he crossed his hands together. Perrin tried to get a feel for what those things meant. Maybe regret, she wondered. Over himself or over his son?

"Had my arrival confused you?" He asked. Perrin nodded.

"Your father requested that I watch you, as a favor given his current condition."

She was shocked. After everything, her father had been sent to a nothing assignment in a region of space that held no other significant Federation Activity. She couldn't think of why Sarek would have known him. She hadn't met anyone in years willing to mention her father even when they aged up her face from the child she'd been when she still knew her father. Perrin tried to keep a muted expression as Sarek went on.

"I met your father while negotiating with the Legarians. I had assumed he would be incompetent given his assignment." Sarek paused and appeared to be studying her. Perrin realized she was glaring at him.

"My father was a very skilled diplomat." She stated with an edge of anger to her voice she couldn't quite help.

"So I came to realize." He replied.

Walking around to another console he made a few adjustments that lowered the temperature.

"Is this more tolerable?" As her anger wasn't really because of him, Perrin wasn't calmed by his comment and gesture. But she kept it out of her voice.

"It has been" She didn't want to suggest anything, "a little while since anybody told me he was want to know what I was doing. Might I ask why?"

"Because he is dying Perrin. You should speak to him, while you still have time." His voice lowered as he spoke, though it was still forceful.

Perrin tried to reply but she couldn't. Memory left off for her where he became an old man. Something she knew he was now, but it still twisted her to hear it. She ran her hand through the wig and threw it off, her reddish hair falling over her face just in time to hide tears gathering in her eyes. She went from the bridge and did not hear Sarek follow her. Stepping into the small bedroom and sitting on the small bed, she stared at the words also etched into the beams outlining the width of that room. Perrin imagined they were reminders for a Vulcan to reach for the calm, reason, and logic she could not shelter behind when it came to her family.

Every drop of color touched her eyes with no depth to them. The script on the walls receded and flattened into the surface along with the rest of the objects in the room. Perrin could sense that there were things around her, but in their alien designs and purposes she couldn't anchor onto them. She fell back into an old despair she'd blocked out by living far away from it.

"We will be at Vulcan in the next hour and six minutes." Sarek's voice announced through the ship's comm system. Perrin spent that time searching for something to take her back to the present.

Eventually they arrived to Vulcan, the room lighting up as they entered its atmosphere and finally that caught Perrin's attention. She could see again.

Moving her hand to the nightstand, Perrin accidentally brushed something off. She quickly picked it up and returned it to its former spot. _Alice's Adventures in Wonderland_ ; it was what she'd knocked off. The front had a plain black font contrasting a ink drawing of one of the scenes from the book. Odd, she thought. She didn't know much about it since she'd mostly read the French Classics but she was mildly familiar with it. Sarek did not seem like someone that would have a copy of it. Was it his wife's, she wondered.

Two deep breaths steadied her. She got up with another curious glance at the book.

She made her way back to the bridge; Sarek did not question her on why she'd been absent; he was back at the front most console, guiding the ship to where ever they would be landing.

Perrin saw something change in Sarek as they coasted the skyline of what looked to her like a massive city. The light was intense as the glare off the mostly glass buildings, angling the reflections upwards, into the viewports. By that light, which hid any signs of age Sarek had and darkened his hair to a sheer black where it faced away from the glare, Perrin found Sarek to be something other than the ambassador she'd been spending the past few hours with.

"You will take the tri-ox now, though I have set the ship to gradually acclimate to Vulcan's atmosphere. The process will begin when we dock." She nodded. He looks so young, Perrin thought.

And when they dropped towards the edge of the city, behind a slight hill that was out of the surreal glare of Vulcan's sun, she was still looking at him. Sarek still looked slightly different to her though the effect, visibly, had worn away. Sarek looked much older than Ambassador Sa'lak who she knew as around Sarek's age and whose hair was still very black. Perrin felt somewhat wistful wondering what had worn him down.

* * *

Sarek walked a short way to observe the surrounding dessert before calling to Perrin.

"My assistant nears." He watched a hover bike come directly towards them. Logically, it was Tiv'ak. No Vulcans visited so far into the harsh desert of the Forge where he'd landed the ship outside of undertaking the kahs-wan.

Perrin came out of the ship slowly. She went to stand by Sarek, her shoulders hunched from the increased gravity. He noted except that and except her narrowed eyes, she did not express much discomfort. And beyond her expression after mentioning her father, he had seen no displays of what she might be thinking, though it was not true stoicism. Sarek extrapolated the pleasant demeanor she often displayed most likely did more among humans to disguise her emotions than the former tactic would. I will need to visit with Reynard soon to discuss the cause of their rift, Sarek mused. Logic dictated to him that he could do little about a situation he had no information on.

Tiv'ak descended next to Perrin. He did not move to help her on. Sarek watched without moving as she went to the front of the hover bike after looking at Tiv'ak a moment, and crawled along it towards him. He leaned slightly to the side as Perrin stood up and jumped onto the back seat, slipping down and finally asking Tiv'ak if she could hold onto him for balance.

"It would only be logical." He responded.

The hoverbike flowed along the loose ground a while before climbing into the sky as dodging the rocky formations became an exercise in creativity. Perrin maintained a pleasant expression paradoxically as unreadable as any Vulcans.


	8. Chapter 8

"Ambassador, you honor me but I am not sure I am qualified. For the past 6.34 months it has been regarded among the staff that you would take on this position." Was Tiv'ak's response. He sat uncomfortably in Sarek's office dressed in a basketball jersey, Earth Embassy Terrors stamped on the back, with mesh shorts. A dark green bruise kept his left eye shut.

"Do you doubt my judgment? Do you think Kal is unsuited to assist you on Excalibia? Or," Sarek raised his brow "do you wish to pursue a career in basketball?" Tiv'ak did not answer as one was not truly expected; Sarek's comment was meant to point out his inappropriate clothes. Though Sarek was left unsatisfied that Tiv'ak didn't give an explanation anyways.

Tiv'ak studied Sarek for a while, turning his eyes towards a few Federation medals hanging on the bottom of the wall behind a Vulcan Orchid. A trickle of blood peaked out of his left nostril as the bruise continued to spread, though so slowly only another Vulcan could note any visible changes.

"I thank thee Ambassador Sarek." Tiv'ak accepted the offer. Both spoke no further and Tiv'ak left after standing aside to allow Kavik past. The other Vulcan sat in the vacated seat at Sarek's desk. Sarek looked across the hall to Kavik's own private office at his estate; he noted a degree of order most would not see in the piles of PADDs, data chips, and—for more traditional species—scrolls about the room.

"Tiv'ak and Kal will be assigned to handle Excalibia?"asked Kavik

"Yes." replied Sarek. Kavik sighed. Sarek responded with a questioning glance.

"Then we are down two staff members though that is one less assignment for you to handle personally. The Algean affair, negotiations with the Legarians, amendments to the Khitomer Accords, redrafting the Apollo Colony charter to comply with Romulan demands, petition to retire Tau Ceti Deep Space Station—" Sarek held up a hand.

"Do you believe me forgetful, Kavik?"

"No Ambassador; but I have observed an increasing degree of irrelevant work being assigned to you directly for the past 2.04 years." Sarek did not challenge his statement.

Kavik slid a PADD across to him. Sarek glanced down to see the profiles of several young humans, starting with an especially arrogant looking man named Ki Mendrossen.

"An earlier request from the federation. Drake Millard is also listed and when we spoke yesterday he seemed pleased at the prospect of working with you again after being fired. As did your other former human aides." stated Kavik.

Sarek considered his words though he did not acknowledge them as Kavik left to continue sorting through the clogs of diplomacy. He felt a heaviness, his logic escaping him slightly as it did often at this time of day for most Vulcans when the sun beat down hottest, like the heat of Pon Farr. He would meditate.

His quarters were bare, his bed the center focal point, conjoined with the dark marble encasing the room. Slipping around, Sarek came to a hidden door and pressed his hand on a keypad cut into the stone. The concealed space served as a closet, the clothes ranging from many uses to many colors. He had worked with several species over his life and was prepared to receive any kind of being into his home no matter their specific customs.

Sarek hung up his current outfit in a row of particularly conservative robes; doing so left him only wearing long undershorts. A small electric candle that had flicked to life when Sarek walked into the room was enough to see the lines in his thinning skin, to see the green veins poking through at his joints. Yet his age still managed to hide mostly behind stiff muscle and a sharp mind. His movements remained fluid even without the guise of his clothes as he went to a shelf occupied by a figurine of Surak and also a lavender tunic and gauzelike pants. He observed the statue with deep breaths before pulling down the clothes to put on.

* * *

Perrin watched one of her guards go over to help the man.

"Why did you think he was distressed? The human exhibited no emotional responses that would indicate that." Perrin smiled at this as she kept an eye on the street and thought about the question. It was due to noticing first that man wore a yellow Starfleet uniform, and seeing how he had managed to walk even stiffer than its unyielding fabric. She'd called over her guards staying in the apartment across from hers to help him when he collapsed.

"I think that because he is Starfleet." Perrin rolled her words as though the conclusion was obvious but without arrogance. "And he is rather pale don't you think? Look at me." The Vulcan turned and studied her face. His eyes widened slightly when he spotted the difference.

"His skin looks gray—yours is much pinker. But why would he not signal his distress because of Starfleet? They provide medical care." Perrin smiled even more. The honesty of Vulcan is refreshing, she thought. Surprisingly, to her, it was much harder to hide her emotions around Vulcans. They were the only truthful ones there, she remembered with guilt.

"Humans sometimes feel that they have to prove themselves; that they can handle challenges, so they don't tell anyone when they are in pain. Especially people like him. His position demands something of—" she looked at the antique needlework hanging from the walls as she thought of what her mother had said to her often when teaching her to play violin as a child, " _maîtrise de soi._ "

Her guard did not respond but went back to the small bench in front of the apartment Sarek's distant niece allowed them to use. She was staying at the Vulcan Science Academy. He closed his eyes as though meditating and the officer disappeared in a beam of particles from the street. Perrin hoped they transported him to a Federation hospital.

Though Perrin tried where she could to keep a hold on the world, she still felt disconnected and caged. She disliked it, but Sarek had yet to report back to her guards when she could be allowed outside. He had reassured her that her being allowed to leave was being considered seriously. He had not promised it, however. The thought was accompanied by worry she acknowledged but replaced with more productive emotions.

She went over to her pile of clothes and started folding them up again. She did not want to reorganize the house since the things in it seemed to have their own specific order. So, Perrin folded or hung, and re-folded or took down her clothes to reclaim a sense of control.

Sarek had made it clear, as well as his staff and her guards, they would not comment on an ongoing investigation. But she knew at least who had attacked her; the ensign from the morning of the attack had asked about Algeans when he'd barged in. It could not be coincidence—she held onto that idea.

Perrin had been rushing through whether she knew anything of their species since then but no information on them was in the Federation's public files. The Algeans seemed impossible to trace though it could have just been slang for that species. An appropriate name, she thought wryly. She would have to do a reference check based on physical characteristics, which would require access to a terminal that would support that type of input. Grey skin, pronounced jaws, and a yellow slime that poured off their faces, such features would be easy to narrow down. As long as, she thought, she narrowed her search to exclude mythical demonic creatures. But that would have to wait until she was clear to leave her apartment, which had been stripped of everything technological but a comm and an old food synthesizer.

Perrin finished up her folding and walked to the synthesizer to make the only food that she could pronounce. Also the only thing she'd been eating since arriving, the plomeek soup was now depressing to see with its dull aroma breezing through the apartment.

Outside the guards strolling the streets changed their positions to every 23.4 minutes to alleviate suspicion.

When her guards started to move again, which Perrin noticed as she put back the small earthenware bowl into the kitchen, she saw them all approach her apartment. They were closing around two men, one who she realized was Tim Valor.

Her feeling of paranoia while in the President's Executive Offices paled to the overwhelming amount of it now from seeing him under these circumstances. She searched for some way to escape his approach as Valor and his friend crossed a stone patio to the apartment's entrance.

Running to the guest bedroom to grab her violin allowed her to realize there was another door towards the back of the apartment. It was inside a room with a candle fixture supported by a metal figurine of a Vulcan man holding a chunky candle in each outreaching palm. Two small mats were laid out in front of it. Perrin nearly slipped on one, forgetting to be careful as she swung the door open and stepped out into the shared courtyard.

The space was empty and shielded from the sunlight by a high-up anchored sheet that was stretched between the five buildings meeting around the courtyard.

Another tenant, a young Vulcan man who she hadn't seen—Perrin only knew of an elderly Vulcan lady from two floors above—stared at her as she slammed the door shut. He lingered between a screen off room and the courtyard, finally moving close to Perrin when she looked him over while catching her breath. Fear was still pressing down on her, but she fought it back in front of the stranger.

"Forgive me, are you experiencing distress?"

"I—" she caught her breath and forced a smile, an old coping technique she couldn't help, "I'm fine, thank you." The man didn't press and pointed down to her case.

"What instrument is that? It does not look familiar to me."

"Oh, it's a violin, a stringed instrument." She tried to be polite. "Would you like to hear something?" She tried to make out his expression but his face was angled away and covered by shadow.

The man circled her before replying, studying the instrument.

"I am due at the embassy. If you are fine I will continue there." He lingered for a moment.

"I am Sakkath. Since starting work at the linguistics department in the Federation Embassy, I've found communicating with humans difficult. Will you allow me to study you?" Perrin felt conflicted in how to respond. She couldn't go down there now. She couldn't let on that she couldn't go either.

Sakkath elaborated as Perrin searched for a response. "The next time we are both here, if that is preferred."

"I would very much like that, yes." Perrin replied. Sakkath nodded and left, leaving her with a slight sense of ease and a feeling that her temporary neighbor was very undemanding. Soon though, another Vulcan came into the courtyard from the opposite building, one of her guard dressed in a loose tunic and pants as though he had just been sitting around playing games. There was even a slight green stain on the collar that Perrin couldn't decide was intentional or not.

"Valor has arrived with a message; should I send him back to deliver it personally, Ms. Perrin?"

"No; I'm afraid I'm getting tired." Perrin yawned for effect. "Would you mind telling me what it was about?"

"I believe he desired to deliver the message personally." He responded.

"And I'm falling asleep and sure he as better things to do. Please, just tell me—it would be the most logical thing to do." That convinced him.

"You will be allowed escorted movements around the city with notice and approval to and from the Ambassador's chief of staff or he himself."

Knowing she wouldn't have to speak to Valor, her paranoia fled and was replaced with real tiredness; from fear, from boredom, from the stress of a situation out of her control. She could keep those emotions on a backburner but she could not push them out all the way as normally she could; not when Sarek and her situation were both a reminder of a block of memory she could only avoid remembering to keep from being drowning in it.

Perrin kept a wary eye out for Valor as she headed back in, not entirely trusting him to leave her alone, not when he saw a chance to get something from her. Like when she was young, she thought.


	9. Chapter 9

Sarek was going over the recent meeting between the Algeans and the Federation President while he waited.

"The Algean delegation left after speaking with the high council representatives about Vulcan sending aid and reinforcements." Sarek did not inquire as to their response, he was aware of his government's polices regarding such requests.

"And will we have to be concerned about any more cargo and personal ships entering orbit?" He asked.

"No Ambassador. The ban was enacted this morning by the Federation Senate due to the confirmed reports of crimes committed in the course of the Algean Civil War." Replied Kavik.

Sarek put away his communicator after asking about reports of members of the Apollo Colony still sighted at their previous settlement near the neutral zone. He reminded himself to ask the Ambassador to the Romulan Empire if he or one of his staff could take over the final stages of the Apollo Colony issues; the data he'd finally received on Algea's current state convinced him that he could afford no distractions for the foreseeable future. Algea now had his entire attention, Sarek noted. Not so much though that he hadn't noticed the pile of PADDs migrating from his own office to Kavik's. He seems to think I will be entirely distracted by this, he mused without contention.

Sarek ran the faucet for effect.

He moved from the small bathroom back to a living room chilled to the appropriate temperature for its human occupant. He went back to a stuffed couch beneath a spiral staircase, both nestled next to a fireplace holding only a mountain of ash and a wafting breeze of heat from the open flute. The latter was why he'd chosen that particular spot.

Reynard was still leaning his head against his shoulders, eyes closed with distress from Sarek's earlier question.

"I don't see why you need to know."

"It is imperative for me if I am to protect Perrin. She seems to fear something of those around her. Humans in particular." He added the last bit with emphasis. Reynard shook violently but waved away Sarek as he rose.

"No, No! Don't get her, I'm FINE!" he shouted, which brought down his caretaker regardless. She looked to Sarek who returned her look of concern with calm that sent her back upstairs.

Reynard regarded him. Finally, he answered Sarek's question.

 _"Perrin was such a nice child. She and my wife were close since, since she wanted to teach Perrin everything herself for the first little while of her life. She wanted to be as close to her as possible; my wife had a big family that saw each other often._

 _Together we used to pick mint from my wife's mother's garden. She didn't approve so my wife and my Perrin would play for her while I went out and picked a few sprigs for them. I would lean on the columns around her small porch and listen to them as that would never take—take me so long as they would play. I loved to listen to them._

 _Her mother being killed must have hurt her the most but I was the one that shut down. I had to be taken care of._

 _So she didn't cry for her and watched me closely instead of her mother's casket at the funeral. I think it hurt my Perrin that she had to do that. She loves her family. She protects them, just like her beautiful mother._

 _Every day my Perrin walked me to the transporter station in town; she, she would leave class and bring me tea when she felt something was wrong or that I'd seemed especially sad that morning. She would drop everything to see to me. But I didn't care. I kept so, so—truly, cruelly depending on her. And she kept on caring. She went halfway across the galaxy to be by my side to glue me back together. My Perrin was even on Antara during a brief occupation by Denobulan terrorist. She stayed with Ambassador Sa'lak—only one that stuck up for me, I don't forget that—at the Vulcan Antaran Embassy but snuck out to watch me give my speeches._

 _I—I remember, I'm remembering her there, plasma grenades going off in the streets from the windows. Even there I was more concerned with my happiness at having her by me. I was not a good father to her, even if she didn't know it, even if she wanted to be there to protect me._

 _Sa'lak watched over her as a curtsey to me while on Antara; but there were others who also saw how little I took care of her. Dennis, you know hm, would study with her. He would force her to since she always wanted to watch after me, but he found the time I couldn't even though he had the same workload I had. Some of the other ambassadors would have their spouses and children keep her company at dinners and conferences. If they started to go outside she would go back to me and ignore them for the rest of the time._

 _Tim Valor seemed to take a special interest in her too. He alone seemed to be able to drag her away from me. He had lost two of his children; sometimes when I went to find her at the Bureau of Planetary Treaties Offices, when we were in Paris, I could hear them through the door talking about my wife or them. He allowed her to grieve where I didn't. I think—thought that it was fine. He wanted to make sure Perrin was okay and she looked so much like Valor's Daisy. He also started giving Perrin chocolate coins like he did her. Took her on walks in the rain that she used to love to take with her mother. I didn't like the rain anymore._

 _About three years after my wife died, I began looking to help out an underground movement on Romulus seeking to reunify with Vulcan. Few knew about it at the time, though since my trial it is more known, so I tried to keep it secret. I did not tell my staff, Dennis, nor anyone in the Federation. But, Valor had suspicions as I, I began to refuse new assignments unlike the past few years where I welcomed them. Nothing I was officially working on demanded much attention so I believe those two things are what alarmed him._

 _Where I wouldn't speak, he turned to ma choupinette._

 _I, I, I—basically told her I hated her after I was stripped of my awards and made a piranha. Sent to Tele XI. Hated by the federation and the colonist survivors after the Romulan attacks in retaliation when they found out. It was years later when I finally heard from one of Valor's old bodyguards why my Perrin told him about my actions._

 _Valor began to tell my Perrin that he was very worried about me. That I was being influenced by Romulans, my judgment was too clouded by grief for me to see what they were really doing. Valor also told her that he only wanted to help, that she could trust him and not to tell anyone, including me. That he—he wouldn't tell the Federation about my brainwashing and that she could count on him to make sure my career would never be affected._

 _Perrin stopped going to school to spy on me, to go through my things. She would use a hidden camera to photograph what she saw and send those photos to Valor. I remember now or I have finally noticed it looking back, that the reason I stopped looking for her at home or elsewhere when she wasn't with me but started going straight to Valor is because I knew she was spending all her free time with him. He made her happy, because he made her feel like she had a way to help me._

 _At my trial, she stood in the back of the room, far away from Valor who made no attempt to go near her except in the beginning but then Sa'lak had to stop her from hitting him. After that he exchanged seats with an Andorian delegate to sit near Perrin. Sa'lak was the only one who tried to get Perrin's evidence withheld, saying a child was not a trustworthy witness. That was why I asked you, Sarek, to watch her. Only he and the other Vulcans tried to keep her off the stand. Only logical really, but Perrin always found a smile for them alone when they passed by. Me, she turned away to cry._

 _I just didn't think. Now she is alone, refusing to talk to her other family as punishment to herself. I can imagine her pain is like mine now, but she truly cared so it must be worse."_

Ending the story allowed Reynard to experience the emotions it brought to him. He cried violently and the caretaker finally had to take him upstairs.

"Might as well leave sir. I'll lock the door when you're gone so don't stick around for that." She called down to Sarek. He lingered a bit, still snared by thoughts about what he had just listened to.

It explained a lot of what he'd seen of Perrin in her reactions: she hesitated in speaking of her father, around humans, and one of the guards had reported her refusing to speak with Valor when he had come to inform her she would be allowed limited freedom of movement. She should have informed me, Sarek thought; I would not have allowed Valor's request. But the story also pointed out to him another trait he was mildly aware of before; she was single minded.

Sarek went to a few pictures on the mantel; all of them were of Reynard's family. Two showed him, his wife, and Perrin all together. One was outside in area of rolling greenery stretching to the edge of the sky with few dots of detail fleshing out the scene; a slight expanse of flagstone kept the chairs and bare feet of all three people from being stained by the grass. In the other, Perrin and Reynard were fighting for space in the same lounge chair in a library while Reynard's wife took up a quarter of the print her head so close in the photo Sarek deduced she must have held the camera herself.

His thoughts deepened as he looked over the other photos, all of Perrin. All were of her as a child. One would be forgiven for mistaking the child in the photo for having died given the absence of progression. He stared at them for a long while.

Sarek pocketed a small photo hidden behind one of the frames. Picking at the edge, he had pulled it out and had seen it was a school photo of her appearing, as far as Sarek could deduce, annoyed to be there but smiling. Her face was angled upward; her eyes were strained.

* * *

He told the driver to take a route by his niece's apartment, on what impulse he couldn't justify, so he ignored a usual examination of his reasons to read the data regarding the Algean Civil War and the investigation's photos of all the Algeans registered as on Earth at the time of the conference attacks. "Escort Perrin to the Embassy tomorrow at 0900 hours." He messaged one of her guards. She would have to look through the photos to see whom she recognized; Sarek decided he would present them to her personally to insure human influence did not sway her final conclusions. Several studies had shown an unconscious bias of humans to influence a situation towards one that corresponds with their established hypotheses, Sarek noted. He also noted Perrin's reluctance to trust other humans would most likely set her up to counter whatever conclusions they might lead her to, an undesirable result as well.

He looked back to the list of answered messages regarding other assignments that had amassed even in the 4.5 hours he had spent with Reynard. He saw solutions that a first year intern to United Earth's prime minister would be able to foresee. My experience is wasted, Sarek noted. He ignored a sensation of discomfort as he wrote out a second message to Kavik, allowing unvoiced meditative chants of Surak to cleanse his mind while doing so.

"Reassign everything but the Algeans, Legarians, and Khitomer amendments to corresponding diplomats and departments." Sarek sent the message immediately, wanting no distractions in the coming days.

When they drove past his niece's building he looked closely, seeing to no lights on in the apartment. She must be asleep, he thought. He did not ask the driver to stop.


	10. Chapter 10

Perrin circled around the lobby, waiting with an idea of how to pass the time until Sarek would be ready to meet with her. But the idea was one that came and went through the years, beaten down by guilt, yet different from knowing now her father was dying. In the end, she stayed away from the receptionist not sure if he would be notified of a request for his comm number. Something must change, Perrin repeated in her head to the rhythm of her shoes clicking on the tan tile floor. Like her need to get back to her life, she felt a rising pull, especially since seeing Valor twice now, to resolve her past; blocks of memory were pushing to the forefront of her mind. Now seeing him a third time, she amended as a large group descended from the lobby stairs headed by Valor. He was focused on Perrin while reaching his hand over to pat another human ambassador next to him on the back; Perrin did not run. She felt the same fear rushing over her, but more intensely from the realization that she would have to admit it if she bluntly avoided him.

She waited as he came over, wavering under her tunneling vision and a sense that the ground was funneling down beneath her. Valor eye's darted back to the group, stopping short of Perrin to tell the receptionist some story that had her laughing. After they crossed out into the streets of ShiKahr, he waved at the receptionist and finally sat in a chair next to Perrin. She smiled, barely seeing Valor's face through a haze of black. Focus; the word did have their same effect when sitting next to him. Valor kept his gaze just beyond her as he started to speak.

"Perrin. Sarek is not telling me much about the situation—"

"Then there is nothing I can tell you. Whatever he wishes I must comply with; it's only logical." She countered.

Finally speaking to him, she felt bolstered by her pain. He couldn't look at her, but he could so easily take her family away, Perrin furiously thought.

Seeing an opening when Valor failed to respond, she walked towards the receptionist to ask her if Sarek's emergency call to the Klingons was over.

Valor grabbed onto her shoulder and spun her around to face him, finally staring squarely into her eyes.

"I did nothing wrong!" he shouted. Some, including the receptionist, eyed to him, startled.

He lowered his voice and leaned in. "He led to the deaths of _hundreds_ subverting basic protocol. You know how he was; all he wanted was a new way to keep his mind off the fact that he was letting his life fall apart. You came to me when you were sad, scared, worried—not _him_! I was doing the right things, I kept the Romulans from finding an excuse for all out war." Valor's fury laced through his words but Perrin fought back with hers.

"Yes; so you could be where you are now, you did the right thing! Though that every Vulcan at the trial found fault in your methods does call them into question, Head of Federation Bureau of Planetary Treaties, Tim Valor." She spat. "You should have said nothing and those deaths would not have occurred. My father would never have been found out by the Romulans."

"If a child knew—" He started.

"Among Vulcans discussion of such a private matter in a public space is most inappropriate." Coming out of a turbo lift behind them marked "authorized personnel", Sakkath's voice started out with a commanding boom, though his expression showed a deepening modesty as he finished addressing Valor with recognition.

"There is an unused office on the 14th floor." He offered. A few other personnel came up in the turbo lift and stopped to watch Sakkath.

Valor withdrew then. He followed out in the direction of his group, smiling to the receptionist who returned one with effort and panic. The personnel continued on with a quick greeting to Sakkath, going into a room filled with data crystals kept in micro cubbies that workers, dressed identically, picked and handed out to be put into one of the several terminals in the room. Perrin watched it all for a moment. When she felt herself steady out, she thanked Sakkath.

"I must thank you; conversation was getting a little dull." She hoped to stir him away from too many questions. He quirked an eyebrow in response.

"I was merely addressing his inappropriate behavior. It did not seem that you were having a conversation, it looked more like the arguments two of the other human interns engage in when one fails to index the semantics properly." But he once again toed away from delving into anything, instead moving back from Perrin to carve out even more personal space for himself than most Vulcans. Perrin felt he probably did so from embarrassment, Sakkath's gaze followed Valor crossing to an American style dinner as he shuffled away.

Noticing a lithe looking Vulcan coming down the stairs, Perrin remembered him as one of Sarek's aides. He waved Perrin over and did not move. She thought it was strange only because Sarek and almost everyone else that knew why she was here kept close to her. He must not be aware of the situation, Perrin presumed.

Wearing dress pants and a lilac tea shirt, she didn't worry about tripping on the stairs as she went up. She was glad to live in a time where stairs were for show and most everywhere relied on turbo lifts. Stairs were reminders of spending a lot of her childhood nursing bruises from falling down them in her home. They were long, stone, and uncarpeted. Her bruises took weeks to disappear. If I just knew about cellular regenerators then, she thought.

She said goodbye to Sakkath, expecting to leave him in the lobby but was surprised to hear his very faint footsteps coming up behind her as she met with Sarek's aide. The aide seemed not to care that he was following them and led them both up two more flights to a row of especially opulent offices, each guarded, and each with double doors spanning the wall they were carved into. The one they faced was inlayed with a red stone, used to spell out a phrase in multiple languages, only one she could read: _Ambassadeur Sarek_.

"You know the Ambassador?" Sakkath finally stopped following as Perrin walked behind the aide into Sarek's office.

"Not really. I just—"

"Who is this?" Sarek got up from his desk and eyed Sakkath from the long distance between them. He did not want for detail even from where he stood as he noted, "You wear the pendant of a clan near that of my own." It was on Sakkath's collar.

"You honor me, Ambassador. I will not trouble you further. Live long and prosper." He saluted Sarek then Perrin, absently offering a hand to her. She was surprised but shook it.

When the office was empty and Perrin took a seat at Sarek's desk, she found it to be disappointing to look at. She tried to avoid the comparison, but she was reminded of her father's desk; it had been full of photos of her, her mother, and his parents sitting together at a café. A row of paper dolls she had made and a clay human heart from her fourth grade art class boarded the edge of the desk facing where guest would sit. Sarek's had nothing on it but a monitor and candle.

"I do not do much of my work here." Sarek said in explanation. She smiled and felt the same sensation with his words as when they came into Vulcan. Perrin was beginning to realize as the anger and pain she had felt from seeing Valor faded the more time she spent even just sitting across from her, that it was comfort. The feeling came from his eyes saying nothing beyond an idea she had that they were searching her for the right words. A diplomat's eyes; she knew them well. She looked back into them, seeing where his eyes went over her face. They stopped over hers, and then Sarek looked back at his desk. His left hand was spread out on it. After a while he slid it over to her and brought up his hand to show a small picture. Perrin snatched it up with recognition.

"Where did you get this?" she asked with shock.

"Your father's residence here on Vulcan. It seemed the least likely to be noted missing of his photos of you." Sarek replied.

She looked greedily back to the photo. Less vanity, she combed it for details. Are there creases, knobbed corners, stains, fading; she looked over it for those things. There were none. She pushed back tears. From traveling with orchestras and Darrin's quartet, she how hard it was to keep things nice. And Perrin always traveled with what meant the most to her. Her bow was a replacement, the original that went with her mother's old violin tucked in splintered pieces beneath the lining of her case.

"Is there something you want me to say, ambassador?"

"It is my observation that keeping photos of someone is a sign of favor. You should meet with your father; family is important."

"Then where are their photos?" Perrin countered. Sarek looked confused to her, gazing around the office for a moment before speaking.

"You speak of the human tendency to keep memory aides of relatives and favored associates. I know the faces of my son and my wife quite well; I have no need for such aides."

"Memory fades." The knowledge and her experiences proving it rose and saddened her. Was her father's hair red or brown; was her mother's eyes blue or hazel like the rolling hills of her home, Perrin wondered.

"Vulcan memory is far superior to human. I remember…" he looked at her "them."

There was silence for a while. It was so encompassing that she had nothing to distract her from noticing a mite of emotion from Sarek. A slight tightening of his lips that pulled them down the tiniest bit with him scrunching up, folding his hands and pulling them tightly against his stomach, as though he were cold; she felt it was the closest she would get to a blunt display of emotionalism. He seemed burdened.

"That is painful for you." She quickly regretted the remark. He shut his eyes.

"It is a fact of my existence and as such should logically bare no pain; it only is."

"But you have used an observation about my office to avoid remarking on my earlier statement about your father." He continued, driving the conversation back to Perrin. She did not try to divert it this time. She respected him too much to dig at old wounds.

"My father likes to keep things, even useless things; things he doesn't like." Perrin did not like voicing that particular fear. It came from Valor using her against her father. She thought he cared then.

"The original placement of that photo in his residence would suggest a place of honor."

"You are not human Ambassador."

"I was married to one for many years."

"That is not enough. I am human, his daughter. I avoid him to protect him." She retorted.

"You have not seen your father in many years; in the recent events of his life I have better footing."

"Ambassador, it is enough to see Valor strutting around the building wearing a title he got disgracing my father; I will not add knowing he hates me too!" she said in a rising voice. Her past came a little closer then from its hidden corner in her mind. She hid her eyes from Sarek.

He then circled the desk and stood very close to her: she could feel strains of her hair sticking to the fabric of his clothes from a slight static charge. She slowly calmed again as he stood there without words.

"You cannot allow your emotions to deny your father and yourself, Ms Perrin, the chance to speak again. Such chances are dwindling." He studied her.

"We will speak of what I intended to speak of here at my home. There Valor will not interrupt us." Perrin could have sworn it was almost an apology. Perhaps Father told him what happened, she wondered.


	11. Chapter 11

Sarek suspected the profiles he brought up of all Algeans known to be on Earth during the conference bore too little difference for Perrin to discern possible suspects. Only one, extremely short compared to the average Algean and having green eyes, seemed to stand out. Strange, Sarek noted, that they would send someone with such unusual features to carry out a covert operation. He took back the PADD and brought up the manifest listing which ship he had come in on. It was listed as a medical ship consisting of five other Algean crewmembers.

"There were just three?"

"Yes; I only saw three of them in the hall; the officers would say the same." Replied Perrin.

"And they have." Said Sarek. The security officers present then had even less testimony to offer since Perrin's damaging the wall panel created enough sparks for her to see them but from where they had stood, they could not note specific details of the attackers. They had noted an insignia similar to the Algean medical seal pinned to their chests. To Sarek that suggested a high possibility all involved in the incident were aboard the same medical ship with the green eyed Algean.

Their civil war is becoming troublesome to the federation, Sarek mused; to discredit the wrong side, the rebels or the government, would be to sully our own moral standing in the galaxy. From what information Sarek had, he could not conclusively suggest what path the Federation should take. Unlike with planets that were members of the Federation or those who held treaties, Algea had only been allowed to enter Federation space and trade within it until the recent ban. The Federation had no obligation to send aid.

"Ambassador?" He looked at Perrin who exhibited an expression he deduced must be concern. As with most of her expressions of emotion, it was faint and predominately checked.

'I am fine." Her expression did not fade. He heard her sigh before speaking.

"Will I ever be able to leave Vulcan? To go back to Earth, to return to playing; I still can't decide if I should reject an offer from Palais Garner. I just do not know what to think and I think haven't been any help."

"You have helped; you've narrowed down the possible suspects to the most logical individuals." He replied. "It is possible you may return to Earth within these next days."

"But would it be logical to hope so?" Perrin asked, her lips curling over the word logical as she spoke it.

"Hope is not logical; it assumes what one wishes to happen will."

"It is possible that I will stay here forever, Ambassador?"

"Possible but unlikely. I doubt you would allow that." Answered Sarek. He suspected that she would indeed sooner steal a starship or stow away than be forced to hide forever.

"Are you teasing me?"

"I am not." He answered. She smiled up at him.

Seeing her in his home office was strange. Its last human occupant had been his wife, silently reading _Alice in Wonderland_ on the small loveseat tucked in the corner that Perrin now sat in. She had a wider smile than Amanda, though Amanda often burst with unrestrained emotion, shamelessly experiencing it. She also shared it with everyone generously, even Sarek though he found his wife's efforts towards him pointless on that account.

On those thoughts, Sarek found himself sitting next to Perrin on the loveseat, forced to remember the last days before his wife died. A dam in his thoughts broke. He fought down the memories that slanted his sense of reality, giving everything a feeling of impropriety. Her book from then had been moved from its resting place on the small shelf next to where he now sat; it was now in his ship, idling in orbit, by the bed. Amanda's presence was no longer there in the house or its garden; it was only to be remembered and Vulcan memories were not able to recall as they would have to for him to really experience it again.

But he noted a softer presence now bearing on him. Perrin was hovering close to his face, again concerned for him.

"I am fine." He said forcefully. He meant to inform her that she was touching him, her hand slipping closer on the cushion, the tips of her fingers already lightly pressing against his legs, her shoulder pressed against his own. He did not.

"Ambassador Sarek." Sarek stood straight up at Spock's voice and walked a short ways to where his son had been observing them.

"You should have announced yourself Spock." Sarek stated, raising his hand to salute him.

Spock returned the gesture. "I just did."

Indeed, Sarek noted. But he found himself still half thinking Spock had been incorrect. He would have preferred him not to have come to his office and see Perrin touching him. To see him allowing it. Sarek avoided considering why, banishing it behind his mind with other stray thoughts that Sarek could not say with certainty remained there.

"We will talk in your mother's garden." Spock allowed Sarek to pass him and lead out. Perrin said nothing.

Amanda's roses are dispersing a pungent aroma today, Sarek noted. The gardener had pruned them earlier in the morning, also laying down some mulch by the poppies. And the nearby planet of T'khut glowed with activity over her flowers on the edge of Vulcan, close enough to be seen with specificity, never fully departing the sky around ShiKahr.

Sarek and Spock stood across from one another, both looking at the roses for a while before Sarek spoke first as was his due.

"You did not make known your intentions to visit."

"I would have if I had known. As I had not visited you since your return to Vulcan, I felt when the opportunity arose today it would be best to take it." Spock replied.

"You still allow your mother to influence you." Sarek referred to his use of felt.

"After my death she felt it logical for me to explore some of my humanity. It is a part of me; you did allow a human to mother your child after all." Sarek did not reply.

This exploration was not one he protested too much as he noted a steady decline in the behavior after Amanda's death. And his wife did have her own logic, Sarek noted. Of a sort Sarek learned to acknowledge living with her for so long and of a sort that he observed in the actions of Spock's human associates. He had it to thank for his son's life; and his own, Sarek added after a brief hesitation.

"May I ask who she was?" Spock inquired. He glanced back towards Sarek's office. Sarek's answer was hesitant, having detected a degree of incredulousness in his son's voice.

"I was assigned to guard her by the Federation."

"That surprises me Sarek. I would not expect such work to go to a respected and accomplished diplomat of so many decades."

"Work is no burden."

"As you wish. Your chief of staff seems concerned about the degree of work you have taken on; perhaps she could be dealt with by another—"

"Kavik is too concerned for my health. The importance of this assignment extends beyond Perrin. Yes; I insure her safety but in doing so I insure the highest interest of the Federation." Sarek infused a degree of force to his words, believing it would persuade Spock to move on. It did not.

Moving closer to his mother's roses, Spock knelt by one of the small benches Sarek insisted on placing out there as Amanda aged and became less mobile. So slow, he recalled her, and looked out to the desert. Picking the dirt off the marble legs gave Spock some confidence to continue his questions.

"You're shutting down Tau Ceti Station."

"I myself cannot shut it down. I am suggesting that would be the most logical course; they have experienced several malfunctions. The station was constructed in the 22nd Century." Sarek started to wring his hands together.  
"Would these malfunctions include mother's death?"

"I spent enough time there in my investigations to know there were far more problems than just her shuttle accident. I had been there only 6 weeks and 5.53 days ago to see these malfunctions have continued and increased."

"You are certain" Spock paused, "that logic alone guides your decision?"

"Spock, are you accusing me of allowing emotion, not reason, to guide my decisions?"

This was a line of questioning Spock did not want to cross into. He rose and faced Sarek.

"You are and have been an exemplary Vulcan." He answered. Both faced each other, equally aware of Spock's omission of his true thoughts.

"I will be staying at my home. You may contact me there if you wish." He saluted his father and went back through the offices.

* * *

Perrin was looking through the titles of old Earth books, _Through the Looking Glass,_ _Treasure Island_ , _The Once and Future King_ , and others. She was surprised to see such fantasy books between old tomes of Vulcan literature. Suspecting they were Sarek's wife's, Perrin found herself wishing she could have met her. Throughout what parts of the house she'd seen, she'd seen little concessions like these books. Two small flower pots with lilies by the door, a bright impressionist painting of two people watching it rain through a window above a divan in the living room that was itself covered with several bright blankets. These things somehow looked like they belonged there, complimenting the Vulcan artwork and furniture. I wonder if that's how she knew he loved her, Perrin wondered. She wondered if Amanda saw her place in his heart grow the more things of hers appeared untouched in the house, in more and more public spaces.

Hearing the door open again derailed Perrin's train of thought. Spock passed the office with a strained expression, displaying a touch of emotion in his eyes she would ever have expected to see from Sarek. He noted her looking at him and circled back to where Perrin stood by his father's bookcase.

"When I arrive I noted you were leaning against Sarek. You are aware that to Vulcans, physical contact is disapproved of?" She was.

"You are blushing. Please explain; did you mean to do so? I can assure you my father will not reciprocate the gesture, if that was your intent, nor find it comforting."

"I simply didn't realize; I will apologize to him." Wanting to be defensive from embarrassment, she elected to say nothing to Sarek's son. I owe him a great deal to be picking a fight with Spock, she thought. Spock looked through the door leading to the gardens.

"You will get your chance now." As the back door opened a few minutes later, Perrin heard another towards the front of the house close with a whoosh after Spock had walked away.

It surprised Perrin to see the same look of vague distress in Sarek's eyes as in Spock's. Even more intense in its presence Perrin thought, caught unprepared to see it. He did not stop to continue his interview of the conference attack; Sarek went on down the hall and it was a few moments after that Sarek's driver came to find her. He informed her that Sarek was retiring for the night and they would be leaving in the next 6 minutes.

Perrin had gotten her things together, and finally the shoes she'd left by the door to keep her focus off of scuffing the stone floors of the house, before she decided to go back search for Sarek. I hope that my touching him did not offend him too much, she thought with worry as she went down a long hall, hoping to explain.


	12. Chapter 12

_Amanda! You should have been with me—here on Vulcan. I should not have let you go; I felt agony when you left to go to Earth; but I could not, cannot allow feelings to tell me how to act. I could not voice my irrational fears. Happy to see your family after so long, so long. I know—value of family I denied you yours—no, NO! Amanda—did not have to stay with me. She chose to follow, support me. But the guilt, shame. Spock, do you hate me? Do you—I am forgetting your mother? Spock, my son, Spock, Spock, SPOCK—_

Deep in meditation, the banging and shouts outside of where he sat surfaced his consciousness, still experiencing the extremes of emotion he'd yet to reason with. Sarek felt tears rolling down his cheeks as he replayed the memory of watching the security logs for Tau Ceti; watching Amanda get in the shuttle and seeing it drift before exploding into dust. He muttered her last words aloud. Anguish, grief, sorrow hollowed his mind; those feelings he'd kept checked through the two years he'd spent in isolation on Excalibia. Being home again, seeing Spock, seeing her books unread and to remain so, what he felt was unequaled by the passing of Skon or Michael. Sarek's reason had teared from his efforts against burning the house to the ground to stop the onslaught of despair. He looked around him but saw things and places from his memories.

In his life there was something now eternally missing.

My Amanda, my Spock; their names looped around in his head and stole away his logic. Sarek was now lost in the emotions he'd kept at bay for over two years, barely moved by the knocking that stopped without his notice. _I love you, Sarek. Will you be fine without me?_

Suddenly, he could smell mint and see Perrin kneeling next to him. Like a cold breeze she was insubstantial, but the sensation riveted him. He had to tell her, explain his pain to somebody.

"Spock; I could never meld with him; I worried he might hate me. Hate me for bringing him into a life of never belonging anywhere, a life devoid of love like my Amanda. She's gone. Gone." He whispered as if he were expelling the news to a street of onlookers each needing repeating as he came closer so they could hear. And the onlookers were the years he had Amanda so that they could know and be tinged with grief forever. Patched with sorrow.

"Ambassador!" Now Perrin grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him and he couldn't push her away. He did not want to; he wanted to wrap his hands in hers, to feel them caress his lips as Amanda had done in the early morning as he'd pretended to sleep. You knew didn't you Amanda, he screamed in his head, begging her memory to reply yes. But she'd never admitted to it in life and so he could never know now whether she noticed his eyes slightly opened to watch her do so. He missed her touch, any touch. The closeness that he pretended to tolerate, Sarek dived into the sensation of it from Perrin. He pulled it in closer, the sensation, and held it forcefully. Held it and felt it cool his body. He poured out his grief. Now she pounded on his back.

"Ambassador, do you need assistance?" The voice of Kavik rose him up somewhat from his emotions; he realized he was clutching Perrin against him, the front of her shirt completely wet with his tears. Sarek felt engulfed in shame. How could I act so despicably in front of this human, came the torturing thought that had drove him away from acts of kindness towards his wife.

Perrin was the one who answered.

"It wasn't the Ambassador; it was me. I—" Perrin stuttered over her words for a moment. Sarek realized what she was doing.

"I simply became overwhelmed thinking what if they find me; the Algeans?"

"That is unlikely. You should not keep disturbing the Ambassador, I will enter and take you to your residence." Replied Kavik.

"No." Sarek managed to keep his warring emotions out of his voice. His shame increased at the lie.

"Ambassador?" asked Kavik.

"I wish to assuage her doubts. Allow me to continue talking to her."

"Ambassador." He could hear Kavik walk off and he listened until there was nothing to hear. Perrin started to push against him again.

Carefully, he unwrapped himself from Perrin and she crawled back against the wall, breathing heavily.

"Did I—"Sarek choked, "hurt you?" He looked away from her face as she smiled in response. It was distant, forced and her hands had reached down to her waist to cradle it as she leaned against the wall.

"Do I frighten you like this?" Sarek feared himself; the depth of what he could feel. Fight it, he thought; fight it back, be logical, be rational, be Vulcan.

"No. I'm worried for you Sarek." Perrin replied. He could see it in her eyes, darting over his shivering body as his mind now struggled to find calm. But he could not if he did not resume meditation.

"I thank you, for allowing me to keep my dignity." Perrin's face softened but she did not approach him.

"Ambassador." The formality grated on him. No, NO! I hate it, too distant, he thought with agony.

"Sarek; please." Sarek whispered.

"Sarek. Sarek, I grew up learning about you, a great unifier. I can't bear to have you seen as any less than that. I do not," she emphasized "see you as any less than that."

He could not help a final tear, from the feelings of gratitude that welled up in him at her words.

"You will leave me, I must be alone."

She looked reluctant, but left, holding the door as it slid back so that the opening was only as wide as needed for her to leave. She doesn't want anyone being able to look in at me here, Sarek thought, moved again by her actions. He listened as she stood for a moment on the other side of the door and noted her labored breathing. A mix of emotions overtook him briefly before he calmed himself enough to face the effigy of Surak, father of modern Vulcan. To face it was to face his failure. I have not acted in accordance with logic, he thought; since Amanda's death I have failed to truly control my grief, I've hidden from it in my work. Like Reynard.

He would do so no longer.

 _"My husband, do you not wish me to go?" Amanda asked with a coy smile he was accustomed to. Since leaving Vulcan she had been in a good mood, happy to see some of her family again._

 _"It would not be logical to deny you. Family holds a place of honor among Vulcans." In response, Amanda moved over to him and held out two fingers, a gesture he returned without the hesitation he once might have shown when they first courted._

 _"I love you, Sarek. Will you be fine without me?"_ **He wished he'd known the finality of those words then.**

 _"My wife." He hesitated. "My Amanda, I will be as you left me. There is no reason I should not be." She searched his eyes for something, as she did on occasion, and found it with a small smile he knew did not show the depth of her love for and happiness with him. He acknowledged it in his mind but would not note it. He then saw her walk across the tarmac, guided by her pilot newly from Starfleet Academy. He watched through_ the _viewport as the engines struggled to maintain a stable subspace field and eventually overloaded. He calculated the likelihood of what he then saw being a spatial anomaly. 0.0002%. Amanda was dead._

* * *

Sarek's gaze fell onto Kavik's as he left the meditation chamber. His chief of staff bore no sign of an opinion or curiosity as to why Sarek had informed him to hold any messages that came while he was alone. He only stood staring directly at the door about the height of Sarek's eyes and focused his sights to Sarek's when he appeared after the hours of meditation it took to calm his mind. There was a veneer of detail now clearer to Sarek that showed the changes from the time since Amanda's death.

"Perrin has been returned to my niece's apartment?" Sarek inquired.

"Yes Ambassador, shall I return home as well?"

"That would be acceptable." Kavik left.

Observations of the rooms and halls of his home as he passed them in contemplation showed that his aides had left too. Everywhere was dark. But Sarek did not call for the computer to turn on the artificial illumination; he walked and remembered his way to a balcony where he and Amanda had watched Spock together with I-Chaya walking the length of Amanda's garden as his son recited Surak's teachings to Vulcan itself.

To it and its creatures.

Access to the balcony was reached crossing their bedroom and both he and she, together or separately, took advantage of this to look at T'khut—Vulcan's sister planet. Though not alone in the sky, it was overwhelming in its disproportionate presence among the dust of stars. Sarek turned his eyes to the Nirak constellation, knowing he would have to wait until almost sunrise to see it fully. The ceiling of his bedroom could project a hologram of Vulcan's night sky and reveal every constellation fully; of Vulcan's and Earth's. His wife had enjoyed the view since a skylight would allow in the muted glow of T'khut to keep her up all night. Over their marriage she had learned the names of every star and their constellations, even if she could not pronounce them. He recalled them to himself now.

"It is not logical to isolate oneself." Sarek whispered. He stood outside for a little while longer, by then turned away from T'khut's lonely proximity.


	13. Chapter 13

Perrin had spent the night after holding Sarek as he seceded control to his emotions falling into a circle of worried thoughts; about Sarek, about her father, about how little she knew of the progress of the investigation. She had ignored the pain in her aching muscles that would dissipate in the morning.

Throwing her suitcase on her bed, Perrin had tossed out the clothes to fold them as those thoughts weeded through her mind. At dawn she fell asleep on the folded and refolded piles categorized by style. Not knowing if Sarek was still in that room holding himself as his eyes swam around the room looking at nothing, she fluttered frustratingly between being awake and asleep until noon.

She decided to get up then but not to do anything of the things she wanted to do. She didn't call Sarek nor request her guards to take her to the Federation Embassy to get her father's comm channel; she went to The Vulcan Science Academy's Exobanty Museum and Arboretum and sat in the Jardin à la Française section of their Earth's Landscaping Techniques Exhibit. One of her guards mentioned it after visiting a, as he'd put it, strange café nearby. The owners went there often to meditate, he'd said.

When they'd arrived, it reminded her of the street by her loft in Paris lined by a grove of juniper trees that were always green but especially so under a pile of snow. That section of the exhibit felt like a tepid summer day.

Her walking through the garden focused her mind as she looked over the clean lines and symmetrical layout of the plants. There were also more Vulcans here than in some of the other sections she'd passed. I can see why they would like it, Perrin thought. It was orderly and controlled; she felt calmer herself being there and eventually was able to force some happiness onto her mind so she could really consider what to do next. I need to know how Sarek is doing, she decided looking into one of the two wide pools at either end of the garden.

His face appeared in the water like a vision.

"I had wished to thank you and to see if you were well." She did not face him right away.

Perrin watched his reflection; it was as composed, his stance as firmly graceful, and his eyes as devoid of irrationality as she'd ever seen them, as the picture from her holo-textbook of him. But there was a checked degree of emotion in his eyes she'd not seen before; it was an acknowledgement of something she could now recognize but didn't know how to respond to as she could with a human. But I must, she thought. She turned to him.

"I'm fine. Sarek?" Her voice was filled with concern and doubt she did not try keeping out. It was unsettling to admit but she felt she could trust him not to use her emotions as Valor once had. He waved to a few of his aides that walked around the room, subtly directing everyone else away from them. And though everyone was at a good distance, he still stepped in close to answer just above a whisper.

"A Vulcan does not normally speak of such private matters to those outside their family, or for some matters, outside their self. But once known, it would be illogical to not acknowledge that." He hesitated for a moment and studied her face as he considered his words. "You have seen the two years of emotion I have worked unsuccessfully to suppress. I denied to myself that my efforts were unsuccessful and was forced to observe my failures yesterday." He looked beyond Perrin, "I give you my word that you shall not see me in that state again."

She unconsciously reached out as if to hold his shoulder but remembered Spock's words.

"If it would help to ease your mind, you may." Sarek gestured at her hand.

"Is that all?" Asked Perrin gently, surprised that he would allow her to for just her sake. She reached out her hand without an answer and laid it briefly over his arm, withdrawing it as his aides and her guards passed by the pool they both stood over. It was a comfort; she felt her hunger for someone to trust in that brief touch increase.

The guards and aides had moved back when Sarek had finished speaking to let people wander through the garden again. For a while, Sarek and she strolled through the Arboretum. To the end of the landscaping exhibit and onto the Tree Savanna Biome Exhibit she did not see any other exhibit as crowded as the Jardin à la Française, not that any really were. She looked over a few of the blooming acacia trees in the Tree Savanna Biome Exhibit and was drawn closer by the look of the buds and the few flowers that had already appeared here and there on the branches, while Sarek went over to a small bench and reached down.

Once she'd finished taking in the exhibit, she followed around to where Sarek was flipping through a book that she couldn't quite make out until she leaned it to read the page he was on. _Chapter 13, Common Medicial Herbs and their Effects on Different Species_ was written at the top of it. She froze. It was a book she remembered from the man who'd wrote it: Dr. McCoy. She hadn't thought of him for years; he was in another block of memories she'd stacked away in her mind, related to Valor and her father, resulting from that pain. She'd decided to play violin after then. Those memories were pushed further forward in her mind as Sarek went through a few more pages. She closed her eyes when he drew a finger across one of the sentences: _Though the Vulcan body is quite adaptable it does have its weak points_.

Seeing Starfleet Medical from the shuttle; Dr. McCoy's first lecture as he sat through most of it from his weak joints; going to pick up Safik from the Vulcan Embassy, answering his questions, watching him slip away into unconsciousness; the vastness and degree of accommodation of Starfleet Medical's morgue; the heat it took to cremate a body and the feeling water evaporating off her cheeks as it rolled down in the heat close to the door of the furnace—memories she'd kept away by giving up on being a doctor.

 _"Perrin I really don't think this is Pon Farr! Just take a look at what I found. I know it's rare these days but it could be Trellium-D poisoning."_

 _"Just keep administering the treatment until his wife arrives."_

Sarek flipped back and closed the book. Another Vulcan then came into the exhibit and to the bench. He looked down and then to Sarek who held out the book.

"Is this yours?"

"Ambassador, sir. Yes; I thank thee for guarding it."

"I cannot say that was my intention; your thanks are not needed." Sarek replied. The man gingerly took the book and bowed his head and he left, never fully turning away from Sarek as he did so. Perrin laughed hollowly as he knocked into one of the acacia trees, not seeing it the way he was facing. The Vulcan bowed again and continued away.

"You are familiar with that book." Sarek stated. Perrin did not try to evade the question, feeling that he already knew her answer. She could not evade it after coming to understand him as she now did.

"I make it a point not to think of it but yes." Said Perrin firmly, but with hints of her sadness at confronting something she tried as hard to forget as her father.

"Why?"

"I realized that something that kept me from being blindsided also caused someone to die when they should not have. "

"Patients often die." Sarek replied.

"But I didn't trust anyone's judgment but my own. Even McCoy's; especially the other interns. And he died because of that. Because I was stubborn, because I couldn't trust someone else to save him." She rustled some strands of grass, letting her regrets pour out in front of him.

"I still wish to go back and continue, but not the way I am now."

"Stubborn would be an incorrect descriptor based on my observations. Perhaps single minded. I am certain you would have made a satisfactory doctor." Perrin smiled thankfully at him but the pain had burrowed back just a bit. It wasn't gone, she suspected it wouldn't ever be; she felt wistful hoping his prediction could've been right. She allowed herself to hunch over and drop pretense altogether when he quirked an eyebrow. His face was curious, untrusting of her smile. As I would be, she knew. Perrin was grateful to sit there bowed down for a while, allowing some of her feelings to air out, and more so by the effort Sarek would have to expend to stay with her as she did.

* * *

After Perrin left, Reynard messaged to ask where Sarek was. Sarek stayed behind at the Arboretum to speak with him, meeting at the Jardin à la Française but leaving quickly as Reynard began to tic in distress. "It isn't home." he'd muttered as his caretaker wheeled him out. Sarek and she decided to take him to the Andorian Underground Lakes Exhibit; too alien from Terran environments to elicit an emotional response, Sarek noted. Staring down to the waters that bubbled up from the red rocks of the basin of the lake, he found The Vulcan Science Academy's efforts to recreate the phenomenon were satisfactory. Except for the veins of blue minerals pulsing brighter with the bubbling heat Sarek detected no missing details in their recreation when comparing it to his own memories of diplomatic missions there.

"Could you record her playing? All I have is, uh," Reynard shifted through a few data chips and showed them to Sarek, "These that Matty got for me at some of her Starfleet performances. Admiral Dackett's retirement, the Archer Memorial opening, and this—" Sarek cut him off seeing the man starting to shiver violently.

"I will call for your caretaker."

"NO! Sit!" Reynard commanded. Sarek noted that his shivering was gone again as he shouted. He did not sit, but he did not call for Reynard's caretaker. She was looking at one of the small lakes full of Andorian water lilies with a few of his aides to allow him privacy with Reynard.

Before Perrin had left he recalled her inviting him to his niece's apartment to play for him tonight; I will use that as a cover, Sarek decided.

"I believe I can manage to do so." He stated; Reynard smiled in response. It appeared very like Perrin's as he answered yes to her invitation. It showed the trust Reynard still doled out and Perrin was slowly granting Sarek.

"You could accompany me tonight." Reynard waved away Sarek's suggestion.

"No, no, no. I cannot do that to her. Just let her decide whether she wants to see me."

"Your symptoms are getting much worse Reynard. I estimate that you will die sometime in the next 3 months." Responded Sarek.

"And that is my concern; not yours." Though his tics had returned, Reynard's voice was clear.

Sarek did not intend to give up.


	14. Chapter 14

Spock watched a team of horses run over the fields adjacent to McCoy's Georgia home. McCoy did not own or care for them but allowed others to use the fields so that he could watch them over a cold mint julep in the humid evenings. He'd told Spock it was his little thimble-full of youth, a detail of when he grew up. To Spock it had no meaning, as terrestrial animals were not seen on Vulcan in any capacity, its atmosphere's adverse effects on such creatures well documented.

He continued down the road passing the willows lining it. He continued on until McCoy's home came into view and he saw his old friend bearing down on the rails of his porch. Upon seeing Spock he chuckled and tottered out to him. Spock picked up his pace to shorten the distance knowing McCoy would insist on walking to him.

"Spock, did they finally give you the weekend off?" he asked, grinning widely.

"A curious expression; I was always free to visit." McCoy laughed at this and motioned for Spock to follow him. He walked closer to his old friend than he would have when they had served aboard the NCC-1701; McCoy since had lost some of his dexterity, become frail.

"It's hard to see old friends these days when most of them are dead. I could break out my great aunt's Ouija board but I thought it was all nonsense even as a kid. I never would have thought I would see the day I'd be grateful that you're Vulcan, Spock."

"How kind, Doctor."

McCoy patted him on the back and pointed to a small table with chairs a short way from the river that McCoy insisted his house be built by. From time to time, he would mention that dream to Spock, retiring by the water, when he had come to him for his check-ups or after briefings during their missions. It seems McCoy has gotten his wish, Spock mused.

Both sat down, though Spock quirked an eyebrow at seeing a pitcher of mint julep and two glasses. McCoy poured his own glass to the brim and started on the other one.

"Are you expecting another guest?" Spock inquired.

"Oh for god's sake! Just drink the damn thing you green blooded stick in the mud!" Spock obliged. To insure McCoy does not stress himself out with another argument, Spock justified.

"Finished that quick." McCoy observed with amusement.

"It seemed illogical not to do so as you seem intent on it being the only thing I am allowed to refresh myself with. Unless I wish to drink from the river."

They sat in silence for a little while, remembering the crew, and their days serving together. The sound of the river ran on. Finally, Spock inquired about Perrin; the Federation's public files had given him some interesting data regarding her.

"Perrin Landover; she interned with you three years into her time at Starfleet Medical." At that, McCoy looked curious. He set down his mint julep.

"Now that's a strange thing to be bringing up."

"She is being protected by my father. I have seen them together often since his return to Vulcan. They go to the parks, museums, walk through the streets of ShiKahr together. No one will tell me why he guards her; he says it is for the safety of the Federation but I do not know to what end."

"And you want me to dish out the details on one of my favorite former students. Well Spock, I can't give you any clearer of a picture than you already have." McCoy coughed, hitting his chest to knock the phlegm out of his throat, "but I can tell you she was as straight as an arrow when I knew her. Kinda hoped she'd come back though I'll admit I forgot all about her after a while. But she couldn't seem to trust anyone, with a stubborn streak to boot." He sighed and watched the horses. Spock waited for him to gather his thoughts.

"I guess those two things finally caught up to her and she just couldn't live with the results."

"What happened?" Asked Spock.

"I'm not just going to tell you something like that, Spock! It's just not fair, and it's in the past. And—" McCoy gabbed a finger at him, his eyes severe.

"How long as your father been moping around on that godforsaken planet; now, from what I've heard, he's finally shaping up and you want to pull the rug out!" he yelled.

"My father has spent his time productively serving the Federation on numerous assignments." Spock countered; silently admitting he'd raised the very same concern with Sarek before.

"And that's the problem. Working himself into damn a corner; let them be, your father's not a fool. I think they could be good company for each other."

Spock let McCoy's words simmer. He wanted more insight into Perrin's character but McCoy possessed his own brand of logic that Spock could not deny in this instance. He had never known his father to act foolishly yet it was strange to see them together. He recalled seeing her play a song for Sarek on her violin when he had come to consult his father regarding a peace treaty. Sarek had watched her intently; his form was disciplined yet relaxed. He had had his head honed in towards the music as she played. Deciding to leave a message with his father's chief of staff instead, Spock had left. Recalling that day, Spock realized McCoy had hit upon something he was now consciously noting; Sarek seemed more himself with Perrin around.

* * *

Perrin opened her door before Sarek was fully out of the hovercar. Since after the day his son had visited, she felt he seemed, perhaps, even more Vulcan. The succinct expression of his reflection in the pool at the Arboretum a while ago had become unerring, deepening. The checked emotion in is eyes was gone such that she could see it. Also regularly informing her of progress in his investigation, though offering scant specifics, she was happy with both changes. An end was in sight as his staff now traced the alliances of her suspects. Perrin felt might be able to return to her little loft in Paris in time to still fill Palais Garner's opening; to see the snow on the juniper trees.

Though she had been elated by the former previously, she felt happier now about seeing the snow again than playing in their orchestra.

She didn't worry about Sarek. At first, but the calm she felt from him was not a mask. She did still steer from anything that might make him think of Amanda or his son, despite his mentions of them sometimes with a lowered voice.

A warm smile grew on her face as she tried to think of what to play for him tonight. Bach, Simon and Garfunkel, Tchaikovsky to remind him of when they met. She laughed at herself for the last idea; I doubt he really cares, she thought. She considered asking what Amanda liked to listen to but Perrin's worry at bring her up chased away the idea.

Sarek nearly ran into her neighbor as both tried to cross the doorway.

"Sakkath." Perrin cried, remembering. Noticing Sarek, Sakkath had thrown himself out of his way but lost his balance, tripping into the sand. Perrin glanced at Sarek quickly before trying to help Sakkath up. Sarek looked on with curiosity.

"Sakkath; I must apologize. The ambassador decided to check up on me and I thought you had my message."

"Ambassador Sarek. I apologize for my intrusion some weeks ago when Perrin and I came to your office. You are well respected among Vulcans."

"Not all. And it caused me no offence nor delay." Sarek replied as he glided over to where Sakkath backed away from Perrin trying to sweep sand off him. She stopped then. She forgot sometimes, as Sakkath seemed a lot more at ease with humans than her Vulcan guards and had still not fully learned to control his emotions. And Sarek—he would not say a word when she sometimes passed close enough to brush against him. She didn't mean to, he simply always seemed to be a bit closer to her than she'd originally accounted for.

"And I received your message; I merely hoped—wanted to retrieve my comm as I mentioned to you this morning." Sakkath stated. He held himself straight.

"Ah." Said Perrin. Though Sakkath refused to precede him, Sarek gestured to the door to let them past; Perrin did. They all gathered in the small living room, Sarek looking over the needlework on the walls.

"T'Pau, my family's matriarch, constructed this." He was studying a piece that Perrin found especially nice. It was full of blues and greens, unlike the others that more reflected the earthy tones of Vulcan.

"It's lovely."

"She made it from thread my wife gave to her on her birthday the first year of our marriage; Amanda was unaware that we do not celebrate such events." He responded. Perrin chuckled in reply. She also felt a twine of sadness vibrate through her; he'd begun mentioning her often with the ease of someone mentioning facts instead of the reserved way he would reference her before. Perrin was struck by Amanda's resemblance to her mother: both seemed to glow with joy. She started to sort through the house, helping Sakkath search.

Sakkath found his communicator in the bathroom, caught in the drain of the sink.

"It should still work; mine from Starfl—" she stopped and just smiled at him, refusing to continue. Away from Sarek, Sakkath allowed himself to look bewildered but didn't comment. But she paused in thought, remembering her pride wearing the blue uniform; she allowed herself to feel again that much. She walked Sakkath to the door, Sarek seated himself in the living room as she did.

"Live long and prosper." He addressed Perrin though he'd craned his neck to look over at Sarek.

"You do the same Sakkath. I'll teach you some more tomorrow." He left.

"What will you teach him?" Asked Sarek.

"How to play the violin; a few human idioms though I believe the people he works with are English." Perrin replied, getting out her violin. Lately, looking at it made her restless. She felt almost ashamed to be Sakkath's teacher, finding her playing flat though he had assured her otherwise.

As she began to tuck it under her chin she couldn't smell her mint tea and glanced at the mug on the ground by her feet. Drunk completely before Sarek had arrived, she had enjoyed it too much to notice.

Excusing herself, she went to the kitchen and searched for some more sprigs of mint Sarek had gotten for her from one of the other, human, ambassadors. The jar where she kept them was empty but she kept looking anyways. She knelt on the ground to look for fallen mint leaves between the cabinets and the floor. Thinking she had found one, she snatched it up and smelled it for the indicating cool odor. It was dried out Plomeek. Perrin dropped it in the sink and knelt back down not wanting to give up.

"May I assist you?" Sarek had moved to the kitchen and looked at her with a raised eyebrow. She replied with a sigh.

"It seems I cannot depend on myself being messy Sarek, which is a shame."

"How it that a shame?" Sarek asked.

"There's no more mint."

"I believe I have seen some in the courtyard."

"No there isn't any; there are no Terran plants out there." She responded.

"I was referring to Vulcan mint." He went out to the courtyard and Perrin watched him shuffle around, stretching down to an overgrown section of the courtyard. He came back in with a wide, red leaf in the palms of his hands. She took it and put it in her mug. Already she could smell it in the air, cool but off-putting.

After allowing it to brew she brought it to her lips and took a nervous sip from the odor. Disgusting, she thought. Tempted to spit it into the sink, she swallowed it and set down the mug.

"Do you find it distasteful?" Asked Sarek.

"Oh no; but I was thinking," she searched for a way out of finishing off the strange tea "it's such a wonderful evening. Let's go for a walk, see the sunset." Sarek was still fixated on the tea, reaching over to her mug. Perrin deliberately knocked it off the counter. Sarek moved to clean it but Perrin waved him off.

"I will get some more mint for you." Stated Sarek.

"No!" Sarek looked back at her as Perrin's wide eyes showed her horror. She leaned down and began to clean up the tea.

"I saw where it was; I will have some in the morning." She told him firmly. He didn't go for the mint.

Both stepped outside after Perrin dried away the spilled tea and she found the breeze coming off the mountains almost chilly. Sarek's driver followed behind a good distance in the hovercar as they followed the walkway running outside her building to the outskirts of the city. They paused at the edge of ShiKahr to watch the sun wane under the horizon before continuing. There was enough light left as it fell to recreate some of the effect she'd seen before, it again stripped away the years and made his strong features more pronounced. When the light was completely gone at last, his face returned to the present. Though Perrin was more than fine with that Sarek; she liked his company better than the idea of who he'd been. His knowing and honesty comforted her.

As the ground became uneven where the city seceded to wilderness, the hovercar was easy to hear. It purred loudly and scared away a pack of wild animals off to her distant left.

"The noise will scare away any Le-matya." Sarek offered as a positive to the distraction. They went further into the desert and saw nothing else but still heard the rustling of creatures running off out of sight. Vulcan's moon, really a planet Perrin remembered, was bright enough to point out any loose rocks before she tripped on them. Sarek spoke as they neared the mountains.

"Have you considered what I told you about your father?" Perrin had, along with the mementos he had snuck from her father's house as proof for his arguments.

Perrin wished he wouldn't keep trying to reunite them; she didn't want to know what her father had to say, she just knew she felt she carried enough guilt with her now, she knew her determination not to hurt her father further. She was surprised Sarek kept doing so after seeing the strained relationship he had with Spock. Perhaps that's why, she thought sadly. His house was always empty went she went at night to discuss progress in the investigation.

"I have Sarek. I have not changed my mind, and it will not be changed by you bringing me more things from my father's house to prove he cares."

"The only logical conclusion is that he does. You must see this." Perrin stopped walking.

"In all this time you have not once told me you are certain that is true. I will not risk—" she turned from Sarek, not wanting to show her growing pain though she allowed it to warp her words, "feeling the way I did that day again. It was too much Sarek; I won't deny it. I love him too much."

"That is the first time you have said so to me." Said Sarek.

Perrin smiled to herself. "You couldn't tell?"

"I am not human." They finished their walk going up a path in the mountains broad enough for the hovercar to follow and went back when it narrowed too much.

* * *

Sarek had gone home and Perrin was making sure the lights were out and her violin tucked safely under her bed. She'd switched into a small shirt from her high school gym class, _Proust Le Collège_ embroidered along the neck, and silk pants, their matching top mistakenly stained with resin in a corner at her Paris loft. Smoothing her pajamas, she crawled into bed and lay down in the middle of it. Perrin looked to T'khut at the edge of her window and thought loosely about her walk with Sarek.

In the lighter hours of the night, Perrin woke up confused and still thinking what she was when she had fallen asleep but aware that something had changed. She turned to see T'khut shining directly onto her, framed completely in the window. She tottered to it to black the light out so she could rest. A small touch pad next to it controlled the tint on the glass; she pressed it until she could see nothing, mad at herself for again forgetting to do that before going to bed but aware the walk had taken a lot out of her as it did every time due to the higher gravity.

With no light, she shuffled slowly around to lie back down, and curled up on the edge of the mattress. But she couldn't will herself to sleep.

She tried to think of something but she could only picture Sarek. Perrin could almost see him walking through the desert earlier in her mind; she tried to imagine him asleep himself with envy she knew was because of the certainty of him not allowing emotional considerations to keep himself awake. Counting sheep did nothing, she had no mint; Sarek and their talk would not leave her mind. He is sleeping now like you should be, Perrin scolded herself. Wearing some elaborate robe, his hands crossed over his waist with his chest rising in a strict rhythm. The image came from how she'd first seen him on Tau Ceti. The dark robes he wore then were reduced to nothing but shadows with the light of T'khut blocked out. Now she imagined him laid out on the other side of her bed, something that relaxed her enough to begin drifting off.


	15. Chapter 15

At the embassy since late the previous day, Sarek watched the sky tilt towards evening and a shuttle descend on the building's landing pad. Most off-world traffic went through a port similar to the one outside Paris he had used to return to Vulcan with Perrin but there were a few, like the Algean delegation Sarek saw leaving the shuttle and being guided in by his lower level aides, granted prior clearance to dock directly at their destination.

Placing his finished Pok tar on the replicator in his office, he reconfigured the empty dishes into a lirpa. Sarek walked just outside the doors to his office and waited.

He could hear the Algeans speaking loudly as they entered by the East Records Hall. Some of the Embassy personnel coming and going by Sarek looked down at them approaching and at Sarek with curiosity but no concern over the long spear-like weapon he held. They saluted him with their passing by. Checking his stance, having learned the importance of appearance early in his career, Sarek realized he was leaning into the weapon, allowing it to hold some of his weight. He shifted back onto his feet to center himself. He recalled when he was just 68 and able to stay awake without issue for 3.2 days. I have lost some of my fortitude these past decades, Sarek thought. The delegation finally stopped before him as he considered how long it had been since then, slamming their spears down into the ground. Sarek offered his weapon to them.

"Take my strength; I offer it to you and yours that you will hold it for me in faith and trust." The lead Algean took it from him and repeated his words, offering his own spear as the others followed. Sarek took the first but his aides stepped in to take away the others. They left him to face the delegation alone.

Everyone entered his office and took their seats; Sarek had had several chairs set up separate from his desk; him alone on one side to face the 8 members of the delegation where a row of pre-Surak artifacts had been. Sarek studied the members of the delegation; none present were those suspected of having committed the attacks. But, Sarek noted, among these could be he who was tied those events. He decided to focus on one sitting towards the back; their focus shifted to his desk when the lead delegate addressed Sarek.

"Ambassador Sarek, you honor us with the chance to speak. Your federation had already made its judgments in enforcing the ban. Our economy suffers from not being allowed to trade."

"Though not an intended effect, that it did affect your economy was an unfortunate but not unforseen outcome of the ban." Sarek looked away briefly as though deep in thought but he again regarded the other Algean. He had reached over to another delegate sitting closer to it and as the other nodded both got up to exchange seats quietly. He noted the Algean's continued fixation on his desk; closer now, Sarek saw his focus was the PADDs specifically. He continued speaking.  
"However, the Federation would lose its respect if we allowed even suspected cases of behavior counter to our morals go unchecked. You do understand this."

"Yes, ambassador. I have closely studied your laws and your heroes—Cochrane, Kirk, Kodos." Sarek raised an eyebrow at the last.

"Perhaps in his own mind. However, Kodos the Executioner is considered to be a villain to those in the Federation."

"I apologize—I must have misunderstood." Sarek gave no response. "Is there nothing we can do to resume trade?"

"Resolve the war. Until such a thing occurs, the Federation will not lift the ban." Answered Sarek. A snarl twisted the Algean's face.

"Then I have been led on a chain like a fool here today!"

"You have been offered a chance to explain reports of abuse and what you are doing in the efforts of ending your war. I never claimed otherwise; only you have deceived yourselves." Sarek replied standing up as the others crouched in their seats. All fixed their eyes on him with a look of hate even a Vulcan who'd undergone the Kolinahr would note. Raising his hands when they too stood, both sides watched each other.

"This building is heavily guarded; I have had my aids alerted." Sarek pressed a small device that blended with the embroidery in his robes. "You will not win if it is your wish to fight." They came at him anyways, the first swinging Sarek's lirpa.

It had been replicated from low-grade steel instead of stronger, more standard rodinium, so Sarek swung out his arm to meet it along the handle and snapped off the blade. He then ducked low, away from the still moving arch of the weapon to crush off the club on the opposite end with his grip. The Algean threw away the rest and motioned for the others to circle around Sarek. Though the spear he had been given seemed sturdy in his grip, Sarek also broke it and threw it away, unwilling to risk causing any substantial harm.

Two Algeans behind him reached for his legs but when he noted their movements in the corner of his sight, Sarek twisted back and reached for their necks. With a nerve pinch, they both collapsed on the floor. His aides then burst through the door with the Tellarite guards that had been stationed by his office that day. Two of the Algeans fell back to deal with them. The guards took out their phasers, quickly subduing the Algeans coming at them. Sarek felt confident in leaving the rest to them; he followed the Algean who had switched to sit closer to his desk and who was now reaching for the PADDs that were resting on it.

"Do you think I would leave such sensitive data out for anyone to find? That would be illogical though evidently such thinking is beyond you." Sarek directed at him. The remaining delegates had begun screaming as they attacked his aides, none whom had been prepared for such a level of combat. One of the guards was knocked unconscious; the other had his phaser ripped away. Security will be arriving regardless, Sarek thought.

"We will not lose our way of life to rumors!" the Algean he faced shouted, now trying to unlock one of the PADDs.

"Access denied. User not recognized." The device stated. He roared in frustration and threw it at Sarek, cutting above his eye.

"The only data on those is the Federation's public records. And I assume that which brought you here today is something I know to be too substantial to be mistaken for rumor." Security now entered and took down the rest; them and his aides started towards Sarek.

"Then I will kill you and her!" The Algean cried.

"It will change nothing," Answered Sarek, raising his voice above the Algean's, imbuing it with malice as an intimidation tactic to pacify the situation. The man charged him. Sarek felt he should have reacted quicker, would have if he were still only 68. But he was not, he was tired, and he could not stop the Algean; the others were just enough out of reach. He felt a hard hit compacting his stomach and tearing at the weakened spot in his heart where he'd been operated on many years ago. Sarek fell to his knees. Soon being dragged out of the room by his aides, he watched as security finally detained his attacker. Blindness was setting in in the form of a green film as his aides took him into the hall. It spread to his hearing, sense of smell and touch; Sarek's awareness fell away completely then with one last mental scream for Perrin as his defenses fell, for a concern that they might—darkness.

* * *

"Will he be fine?"

"Mr. Landover, let's just finish your physical; I can't discuss other patients with you."

Sarek sensed everything first before seeing it. Around him, suffering and complaints with lethargy hinted the nature of the space he was in. It was not logical to his mind that those sensations were its purpose; but he retained a dull perception for a while. So he allowed what he could know and sense to flood his mind and raise it up from the dark.

Sarek opened his eyes and sat up quickly, feeling no pain to do so. A Denobulan Starfleet medical doctor walked over to him after forcing Reynard, across from Sarek, to lie down.

"Ambassador, so glad you could join us. Thought we would have to entertain you for a whole day but it seems just a few hours are enough for your species to be fine after such an injury. Though I will say we, Dr. Huston—" another human doctor waved to him, "and I, were a tinsy bit frightened for a while. It seems you've had heart problems before?" Sarek was testing his focus on a few things around him, ending with Reynard, whom he had heard speaking while still under.

"Is that man over there shaking?" Sarek asked. Though he had seen it before and knew it was a symptom, Reynard's movements now were extreme enough to rattle the bed several inches into a tray of hypo sprays. The wide Denobulan smile disappeared off the doctor's face.

"I am afraid so; but you shouldn't concern yourself, he is being taken care of."

Soon, Reynard was being rolled out into another room and given a hypo spray as they put him in a wheelchair.

"You have not answered my question." The doctor said. He blocked Sarek from watching them wheel Reynard towards his caretaker. Unconscious now as Sarek had been, he still shook violently while another nurse restrained his body against the back of the wheelchair.

"Will they not treat him?" Sarek asked; his response was a sigh.

"There is really nothing to be done for him; now please, I can't say anymore than that." Answered the doctor.

"Yes I have had medical difficulties regarding my heart previously." Sarek now focused on the doctor.

"Good. I mean good in that you are finally cooperating."Sarek nodded, understanding. "There was some swelling of the heart tissue and some of the scarring did tear but we were able to fix both. However, you did experience a tinsy bit of blood loss that accounted for your loss of consciousness. We were able to top you off in the end. All is well." He finished.

"Then I will return to my office." Sarek replied.

"Ah." Sarek raised an eyebrow as the doctor removed Sarek's communicator from the folds of his robes before continuing.

"I was told to let you know that you will not be going back to work today or tomorrow."

"I am currently experiencing no ill effects."

"I was also told to tell you that if you complained you would be put into forced retirement to ensure you actually rested for once."

"Who said this?"

"Kavik." The doctor answered. Sarek had suspected this.

"Shall I have my aides gather my personal effects and bring them to me here then?"

"We are letting you leave today, just not letting you work. "

"Indeed. When, today, am I to leave?" Asked Sarek.

"Just waiting on a few results to be certain. A Vulcan of your age needs to be checked over thoroughly."

The doctor thrummed against a tray beside Sarek's gurney where he'd rested Sarek's communicator. Sarek looked down at his robes and noted the front was opened to his waist. He buttoned them up and waited for an answer.

"Ah yes." Sarek looked over at the other man's excited utterance.

"Since you were so curious about him I can tell you a little something I found funny when I saw his chart. That patient from earlier had the same last name as one of my fellow interns back when I was at Starfleet medical. Not quite sure what happened to her."

"Was her name Perrin?" Sarek asked with force. The doctor's response was surprised.

"Yes; it was. Do you know her? I guess you knew the other patient too. I apologize for not letting you two speak then. She's still alive?"

"It is of no consequence now; why does your last question suggest you thought she might have been dead?" The doctor hesitated to answer after a relieved breath.

"She left under bad circumstances; I'm afraid it wouldn't be right of me to say what. But I can say she really blamed herself for the whole mess. Perrin was a dedicated student. Really, nothing could have been done by then regardless."

"Then you feared she'd ended her life." Sarek stated.

"Oh yes. No one spoke to her after; no one saw her. Then again, we only knew she existed at all by seeing her in the operating room."

"She did not form…friendships with her associates in the program?"

"She seemed like she hated everyone. Though she was a bit nicer with me and Selar, another intern."

"Were you the only non-humans?"

"Yes; why?" Sarek didn't answer. He looked to an approaching nurse.

"You're free to go Ambassador. Dr. Bogga, come with me." Giving Sarek a parting wide Denobulan smile, the doctor went with the nurse.

Sarek took his time getting up, still lethargic but not in any pain. He reached for his communicator but Kavik appeared and took it.

"Ambassador."

"Kavik." Sarek answered with resignation.

He went to where he'd seen Reynard being wheeled out, passing a few photos of Vulcan lining the walls. There were two of the Vulcan Fire Plains; Amanda used to take Spock there as a child, he recalled. He slowed even more to look at them a moment longer. Both highlighted the large statues cut into the ridges surrounding the moats of magma giving rise to its name.

"Since I cannot as you are currently holding my communicator hostage, message Reynard that I will—"

" _He will_ , Ambassador. At least for the next few days his caretaker can bring him to the villa."

"I am fine. He is not." Kavik raised an eyebrow but did not counter him.


	16. Chapter 16

Perrin was not expecting Sarek so early that morning; he waited against the door of her apartment as she was going out to a small French themed café near the United Earth Embassy run by two Vulcans with a strange obsession for France. They spoke to her in French and listened intently, ignoring their other customers and work, when she was convinced by them to talk about her home. Everyone else learned to go back into the kitchen and get out the refrigerated pastries themselves when she was convinced. Or when she was there at all. Perrin enjoyed going there often, they had installed gravity dampeners; she also could watch the medical staff come and go from the nearby Starfleet Medical clinic. At the same time the gravity dampeners attracted a large human clientele so she tended to take a table behind the door. No one really noticed her then.

But she enjoyed talking with Sarek; she wasn't expected to carry the whole conversation. She was relieved to finally see him after a few days of his being impossible to reach. His chief of staff refused to say why or what had happened at his meeting with the Algeans.

"Sarek?" She looked him over quickly; he appeared fine.

"Perrin; come." He replied. Seeing him in formal robes, she compared her own simple outfit with awkwardness. Is he meeting with the Algeans today, she wondered. Perrin had made sure he knew she wanted to attend as well.

"One moment." She whisked into her bedroom to change. Throwing on a loose cobalt blue dress, she smiled as she lingered over which scarf to tie up her hair with. She chose white scarf that hung to her waist, braiding her hair through it. Once it was laced around her head to hold away her hair and create a professional air, Perrin followed Sarek to his hovercar that rose over the city and towards a wide, empty section of Vulcan. It beat with extreme heat, a flowing landscape of lava folding over itself and shaping into something that would soon disband when another pocket of repressed heat burst up. The hovercar edged close to a cliff overviewing all of it. Perrin stepped out onto the cliff, confused, and wished she had remained in her lighter clothes since they weren't going to the embassy after all. She started coughing when she first took in some of the boiling air.

She held the ends of her scarf to her face to hold it off.

"Let us move to higher ground." Perrin nodded but stood in place, choking on the wind sweeping up the magma's heat to her so that she couldn't breathe at all. Sarek reached out and guided her along to a narrow platform that went up from the plains. She inhaled violently halfway. When she reached the peak, breathing evenly and drenched in clarity, she finally saw the alien beauty of the place.

"Sarek, it's wonderful."

"Many off-worlders have referred to this place as Vulcan's hottest tourist spot." She laughed, not bothering to explain the joke. She suspected he understood it more than he would ever admit to as he did not look questioning of her reaction.

Watching this place evolve into something new each second and without the aid of life humbled her somewhat. I do not matter here she sensed was the unspoken lesson of the place. She followed with her gaze to mouth of a lava stream cutting through the length of her field of vision. Above its source was her father. Perrin was slapped with a feeling of betrayal seeing him. She hadn't expected this and didn't suspect it was a coincidence.

"Sarek!" She turned to him in fury. He was unmoved.

He spoke bluntly, "Perrin; there are things I will never know about Amanda." She wasn't sure how to respond. He went on. "I did not ask them of her. I did not speak of them." He looked deep into Perrin's eyes. "I regret this error. I believe it has been long enough of not knowing for you and your father. But you may leave and I will not speak of it to him though that course would be unwise, illogical."

Perrin felt years of sadness fall onto her shoulders then and push her a few steps towards her father. He had not seen her but craned his shaking head to watch around him. Is he looking for me, Perrin wondered. She knew it would have been so; there was a look to her father's eyes she remembered from when he would return to France and would try to find Perrin and her mother in the crowds at the port.

She reached out for Sarek and felt his hand brush hers. Remembering Spock, she swiftly clutched it back to her chest. She admitted her pain at not being able to ask more of Sarek. Especially now.

Starting to walk forward again, she came across the embankment that parceled out the distance between them; her father wheeled around quickly. His shaking became worse but he waved off his caretaker who went over to stand behind Sarek with a hypospray in hand. Both he and she stayed behind as Perrin continued to her father who had started crying. Searching him for something, she couldn't find any of the hate in his eyes during his arrest last time they had faced each other. She sat down on the ground to lay her head on his knee and allowed herself to cry with him.

"I'm sorry. What I did then and that I didn't try to stay with you. To explain anything so you wouldn't have live in that house without me and mom." Perrin sobbed. Her father reached down to her and stroked her hair, ranking out the scarf that floated back to Sarek. He caught it and wrapped it along his arm.

"I love you. I love you." It was all her father replied and repeated for several minutes.

Though the embankment had separated them, it also kept the heat from blowing onto Perrin and her father as she finally looked up at him. His eyes watched her face happily.

"I wasn't sure Sarek would be able to convince you. I was certain you hated me though he said otherwise."

Perrin smiled. "He told me the same thing Father."

"I have been blessed with, with a good friend. And a better daughter; I didn't realize what you were trying to do then. I want to thank you."

"I ruined your career."

"No; it was not the right time, I—I was not doing what I did for the right reasons. Even more people than those colonists could have been killed. The Federation could have been forced into direct war with the Romulans. You were taking care of me as always." He sobbed. "I'm sorry for that."

"Please don't." She held his hands. "Please don't feel that way when I was just trying to make sure I didn't lose you too. I did everything because I was selfish."

They sat together for a little while longer, until the plains below began to spit up the ridge to where they were and Sarek and the caretaker had to come to move them away. As they moved Perrin fanned away her father's bangs and smiled.

"Your hair is like mine; I forgot."

* * *

 _There is still this lingering grief holding onto me but I will move it back, push it away from how it consumed me for two years. Two years lost to irrationality. I cannot go back, I will not. Perrin, you will soon leave; the investigation is almost over. I am not sure I wish it so. Pain. Two years with no one living in my home. Stay here and play for me. My Amanda; gone. Spock. But my work takes priority; it serves a greater need. There is no logic to grieving further._

Sarek listened to the caretaker as Perrin put Reynard to bed.

"Are you sure you know how to administer one of those?" the caretaker asked, though the words came to Sarek muffled by the thick floors.

"A hypospray was made to be as easy to use as possible, and I have used them before." She paused. "I've actually missed this sort of thing." The caretaker gave an incredulous snort.

"Trust me, you don't want to do this sort of work."

"I wanted to do it once." Came Perrin's response. After that was silence.

Perrin came down afterwards and stood looking across to Sarek with a quiet smile from the bottom of the stairs.

"Thank you Sarek."

"Family is important to Vulcans." He replied. Perhaps the belief was not entirely logical, he mused, but there were aspects of Vulcan culture that dated the Awakening and so escaped logic. He unwrapped her scarf from his arm and held it out to her. He noted her surprise as she patted her hair, running her fingers through it.

"I didn't realize. Thank you for that too." She reached for the scarf and Sarek noted he had not fully unwound it. Slowly weaning it off, Perrin tugged the end still caught at his elbow. He waited for her to smile at him as his wife had found such things humorous but she kept her eyes on the scarf.

"Do you require assistance to put it back in?" Perrin looked up in reply and gave him a thin smile. It was as unreadable as when they'd met at Tau Ceti. He did not understand. Did she not wish to reunite with her only living parent, Sarek thought . He had sensed that his understanding of her had been growing but this reaction eluded him. Perrin went over to the mantle and while studying the photos she spoke.

"You wished you'd known something about your wife; you said you'd had questions for her?" He nodded as Perrin twisted the scarf around her own arm absently.

"I think I'll be left with the same thing. He's suffering Sarek; I'm not sure how much time is left. As he slips away I feel this need to help, to change things that weighs on me. How has he been since I left—I think of that too. And I'm not sure I want to know how he has been all these years. I can't ask him."

"Then perhaps you should ask; to cultivate ignorance is not a logical action." Sarek replied. He found himself assuming she would smile then but still she didn't turn. Perhaps there is more troubling her, he mused. Her reflection in the glass of the picture frames on the mantle showed a distant expression. She picked up the photo of her, her father, and her mother outside, an older woman to the side of Reynard.

He went over to her and unwrapped the scarf from her arm. Running his hands through her hair, Sarek pulled it over her shoulders so that every strand lay against her back. He was uncertain as to how to recreate the effect that Perrin had had earlier, so he wrapped the scarf around the crown of her head and tied her hair between the two ends instead.

"Sarek?" She asked, confused. He walked to the other side of the mantle to face her.

"One should keep an orderly appearance to assist in the ordering of one's mind." He answered. Sarek noted a flush of red in her lips seeming to spread over her cheeks after he spoke. How strange, he thought. Studying her face, he wished for her understanding of Surak's wisdom; she'll smile once more then he mused. He had found a human, and especially Perrin, could do that and not loose something in the indulgence. The flush receded after a while and she straightened her back, drawing herself up a hint higher.

"I had also wanted to speak with you regar—" Sarek began.

"Oh before you go, Reynard was wondering why you were down in the clinic a few days ago." the caretaker interrupted him. She had come down and was moving over to the front door.

Perrin looked surprised and concerned, her mouth dropping slightly.

"It was nothing of concern."

"Oh; well we were there about half an hour and you were unconscious when I rolled him in."

"Just minor complications from an old wound." Sarek replied.

"I am not sure I know of any minor complications that would have someone unconscious for that long." Perrin interjected, her voice stern. Deciding it would be best to speak to her privately with the investigation still classified, Sarek saluted to the caretaker and motioned for Perrin to follow him outside.

"There was some scar tissue from an earlier surgery that was torn during a disagreement between myself and an Algean delegate." Sarek said as he walked towards his hovercar shaded under an artificial oak tree. Some leaves were scattered off, replaced quickly by a small replicator in the trunk, and brushed against his skin, their texture grainy rather than smooth. One lay on his shoulder that he brushed off as Perrin planted herself closer to him than she ever had. He stepped slightly back. She raised her head and stepped with him.

"Sarek do you not think it would be logical for me to know if the reason I am not being told about the investigation is because the Vulcan running it is injured?" She stated with a suggestion in her tone that she felt it was not open for debate.

"You exaggerate the direness of it; any injuries I had were healed that day. The rest was merely too much caution on Kavik's part."

"I do not apologize for my concerns; I need to know what is happening with you. "

"Only where relevant, yes, you are correct." He replied.

"That was relevant; you were assaulted by an Algean delegate—what if they had come after me?" He detected a slight pause at the end of her question as though she'd left off something. He ignored it.

"You already know to be cautious."

"And yet I would not have known how much so I needed to be; I wasn't even aware that they were coming that day." Like his wife would, Perin searched his eyes but pulled away from him as if conceding. He had seen Reynard do it before when he felt sure he had won an argument with the Tele XI inhabitants.

"You know I am right." She went after a moment to sit in his hovercar. He joined her. Sarek decided to consider her words but did not voice his conclusions. She would have learned from her father that a diplomat does not make overtures to being swayed, he noted.

He admitted in his thoughts that she was right, however; the threat had changed after their attack on him in a Federation building. Proceeding from that, Sarek had been harboring concerns that they might have had more information on the state of the investigation than he knew. They had seemed to be aware that he was involved though the Federation had posed him as simply the most appropriate person to handle their demand for an audience; from that alone, Sarek concluded they should not have tried to find data in his office about the attacks.

And as they left the oak tree and its thatched roof cottage behind, Sarek directed the driver to go to his niece's apartment.

"You are not incorrect in assuming danger from their visit, Perrin; I will have you stay with your father if that would be acceptable?" She was still watching the house as they fell away when he spoke; her eyes gleamed but Sarek could not tell what from.


	17. Chapter 17

Sarek had gone to Paris to discuss his findings with the President, able to deduce from the delegation that had attacked him a clear alliance for the attackers at the San Francisco debates that began the investigation; an alliance to whom, Perrin did not know. But the smile she'd been holding loosely to her lips since he'd informed her faded when the artificial oak tree rustled, catching her attention, and she went back to watching the water boil on the stove. What he had found out did not change as much as it might have once for her. I will have to stay on Vulcan a little longer even if this is the end of the investigation, she thought.

Hearing the timer, she brought over the tea to her father, tossing the steeped mint out of the window as she went; there was not much of a scent to this part of Vulcan that teetered by the center of a wide desert, so the cool wafts of mint kept her calm as Perrin helped with her father's care.

At all times a tremor rattled his body since meeting at the Fire Plains. She had uploaded a copy of _Degenerative Diseases_ to her PADD though it would say nothing that could help her with her father. For her grandmother, she'd memorized the book many years ago but she'd only acquired knowing her grandmother would die painfully, not preventing it.

Perrin set his mug down on a stool next to his wheelchair and reached for a hypospray. He woke up as she did and pocketed it.

"No, no. Let me hear you play. Plenty of time to play doctor later. I already know you're good at it." Her father offered a smile that wearily limped on his face. "You know I'm right." He added. She turned to push the tea back from the edge of the stool in reaction, not hardened by a week of no seeing redemption from his pain.

"Perhaps. I am protective; I don't apologize for that ever." She said. To balance herself, still unnerved after his earlier exhaustion, Perrin smiled teasingly and went over to the guesthouse, where she had had her guards leave her things when she'd arrived to stay, to grab her violin.

She looked blankly down at the violin case after dragging it from under her bed, brushing off a few books and a crumbled flyer. Undoing the locks, she felt as though they were glued stuck. She paused again when she finally pulled out her violin. There are no schemes to fix him this time, nothing I could know would make a difference she thought, leaning against the bedpost, these consuming ideas rushed past her defenses. _Chapter 24- Degenerative Diseases than can Affect Hybrids_ ; Darnay's disease, she recalled, was listed there and explained to be without a cure. If I had stayed at Starfleet medical—she cut off the thought and picked herself up to head back into the main house.

She played through a set of Classical Earth songs: _La Mer_ , _Time After Time, When You Wish Upon a Star._ She had pulled them up from a folder on her PADD marked for a children's hospital concert she'd been called in to do when the previous performer had died suddenly. It had been at Elizabeth Tucker's Children's Hospital; she'd gotten a chance to walk along one of the nearby beaches afterwards. Perrin adjusted the strings slightly and recalled she was alone then, and had watched the other performers dance at an appreciation luau across from her. Her father started to look concerned so Perrin rolled in her thoughts. She let her bow bounce off the strings happily as she went through the songs. Once Perrin finished it had become dark; she got up and went to turn on all the lights to keep the mood cheerful and continued, running through some of the other music she had stored. She brought up a recent file and genuinely laughed, opening it to play.

"Why are you laugh—laughing?" Her father stuttered through his own laughter. His voice was rasped which Perrin heard clearly. She leaned over and spooned out some of his tea to wet his throat.

"Oh it's something I played for Sarek the first time we met without realizing." She answered.

"I'm surprised you didn't notice him; he's hard to miss."

"Well it was dark. I was—" She tried to remember it exactly, "down in this space station's kitchen, a real one like at home."

"Wowee ma choupinette. A rare sight."

"Yes; it's why I went down. It was dark, I simply didn't assume anyone would be there, and so I practiced this particular song for the conference. Then he appeared, asking me…" she tried to recall what he said; she could recall how he looked in the darkness, her heart racing in embarrassment at intruding on a legend whom she admired as a result of her father's work.

"You are intruding on my meditations?" her father offered when she didn't answer. Perrin flashed him an amused glance.

"No. It was 'Your performance was quite satisfactory.'"

"Sounds right."

"Yes." She agreed.

"I'm very thankful to him; does he know?"

"Yes." Her answer was certain. And a thought that had kept coming into her mind that past week, especially when she avoided thinking about her father's illness, returned: Sarek taking back her scarf.

With pointed heat, his fingers had brushed lightly through her hair to put the scarf back around her head. She couldn't mistake their path along the base of her skull as he had done so, doubly aware with the contrast of his seising her like a vise the only other time he'd deliberately touched her. I am thinking too much of the gesture, she thought. But she had also spent most of her life reading people's actions after Valor had deceived her. She couldn't turn from feeling he could have tied her hair up faster, that he didn't even need to do it at all. But he did. She blushed; Perrin had an idea why he had and one she knew wasn't logical; she didn't doubt her ability to read people though. Do I want it to be true, of him—and me, she asked herself, her memory of walking alone on that beach in Florida, watching the others together snuck into her mind again as she mentally went through the piece to escape a thought she knew couldn't amount to anything.

She put the PADD down and played "None but the Lonely Heart" for her father as the sky grew dark, which had lightened with T'khut's approach when he finally stopped her to be taken upstairs to sleep. Perrin rested the violin on her lap and looked at T'khut taking over the sky for the apex of the night. She found the dot Sarek had told her was Earth in Vulcan's crowded sky and hoped he would find the time to get what she'd asked him to.

* * *

Of the row of townhouses facing him, Sarek went to the one on the end that looked down at a row of juniper trees stretching onto a small café that was still crowded and that sat across from the corner door entering into Perrin's townhouse. He pushed in the code Perrin had messaged him and went up the stairs to the top floor. He reached the landing that led to Perrin's loft where she'd asked him to retrieve the small porcelain music box she had sent a picture of before he'd left Vulcan. The unlocked keypad flashed with a few notices when he entered; messages from Darrin Port and Mia Rue along with an alert about a Palais Garner deadline; the last's importance he could not determine.

In the unformed space he stepped into, Perrin had created rooms with the furniture, and a raised platform near a wide bay window that showcased an ornate wardrobe and bed served as the bedroom he would need to search. The sheets on the bed were slicked into place without a wrinkle, the tightly pulled lines crawling across it towards a dining chair with a marble box on it. He picked it up after a quick comparison to the photo Perrin had sent.

Cradling the box in the crook of his arm, Sarek started back out, surveying for problems; there were none. No dishes in the sink and only a stained shirt crumpled in the corner to challenge order. But in a small recess near a bookcase—a few pictures of her family stacked against the spines of the books, all medical—he noted a small mint plant looking withered. It was shriveled like the leaves he'd seen Perrin use for her tea at his niece's apartment when he would stay late listening to her preform. She was drinking mint tea at the medical lab he'd seen her at the previous week after their final meeting in regards to her testimony, he noted, reminded by the textbooks in her loft. Then she had sipped the tea deeply, half turned towards the street when she'd spoken to Doctor Stoka, who managed the lab and had served as an transcriber for him briefly 78.4 years ago. Sarek had not asked either what is was in regards to after she left with a few books and a Vulcan Medical College admission's flyer; he had guided the Klingon generals he had been speaking with about their perceived slights on their honor to another gagh bistro, which was opposite the direction where Perrin had walked off in. I could have done no less to preserve her privacy, Sarek thought, remembering what Perrin had done for him when he had lost all self control. He allowed himself the sensation of gratitude.

Sarek rested the box by the door to go over to the plant. A small lamp over it was damaged: the sealed reservoir connected to the lamp half full with water as a light blinked at the base. Moving to the kitchen, he pooled some water in his hands and poured it over the plant. He started taking apart the lamp. However, he paused.

Perrin will be returning within the next few days, Sarek noted. His meeting with the President had ended with assurances that the Algeans would not be allowed into Federation space following the President's meeting with the Federation Senate. Perhaps it would be logical to simply set it on the chair by her bed, he mused. The angle of the windows and height of the opposing buildings on her street would offer the plant true sunlight that would nullify the risk of leaving it where it was.

He pulled out the motherboard to get a better look.

Within 3.4 minutes, the lamp rebooted after Sarek removed a pocket of water interfering with the electric current. Draining it and using a dehumidifier under Perrin's sink to further dry it, Sarek decided to also fill up the reservoir as well.

That was without purpose, he noted while walking back through the street to his ship idling in a small park. But he remembered something Spock had told him about his associates. His friends, Sarek corrected with a measure of reluctance; he did not feel the term as apt but could think of nothing else to apply to Perrin.

He pulled his cloak tighter around him, too tired from his journey to Earth and earlier meeting to attempt to raise his internal temperature so that the mild night, a few humans from the café wandered out in shorts, would feel less cool. A breeze caught him that caused him to feel even colder. Sarek retreated to an alley between the townhouses and a tailor's shop to watch the juniper trees until they stopped shivering with the wind. When he was young he could stand the cold air and acclimated to it easily as Vulcan's ambassador to Earth, he recalled as he waited.

But I forfeited that skill to learn and to understand Surak's words with more clarity, and to understand their logic Sarek thought. To that end he had come to understand the unreasonableness of attempting to live alone on Excalibia in a way he could not have as a young diplomat, and the illogical nature of his and Perrin's choice to ignore their pasts, to allow illogical impulses to sway his mind.

He thought about Amanda; he thought about Perrin's plant. Perhaps I should have cut off a few leaves for her tea, he mused.


	18. Chapter 18

Though the detour would take him through a section of space in which communications would temporarily cease, Sarek deduced it to be the most logical course on his return to Vulcan, not experienced enough in navigations to attempt a more direct route when scans picked up subspace turbulence. His ship's computer calculated only a 1.82-hour delay in doing so. He opened a message from the President from the flight control computers after imputing the new route.

"Ambassador Sarek. I have good news for you to take to Vulcan; well, not for the Algeans. The senate agrees with your findings that the initial attacks were from a rebel group and the rest were clean ups from Algea's government. Therefore, they have elected to enforce sanctions and to put in place a blockade for the duration of their internal conflicts. Their homeworld's location was cited as an unacceptable risk for Federation members. Though, as you said, Councilman Exton was in favor of war, we managed to take that off the table entirely. Let Perrin know she's free to go about her business, wouldn't worry about anything further; we'll be sending a copy of actions we'll be taking against Algea within the hour. And thank you again Ambassador Sarek, for your handling of this investigation."

Sarek forwarded the President's report to Kavik, deleting it from his personal files. He set the computer to idle also; the panel screens all reverted to a graphic of the IDIC and the lights in the bridge dimmed as he went to the bedroom and sat on the edge of his bed, bringing Amanda's copy of _Alice in Wonderland_ onto his lap from the nightstand to skim through as he waited to return to Vulcan.

In their years together he had caught words and sentences from it as his wife had read it. Sarek admitted to himself he had not acquired any increased understanding of its illogical contents despite her having read it quite often- 1,456 times he had personally noted. There were portions he found satisfactory, however. He opened up the book towards its latter end rotely.

"I cannot go back to yesterday because I was a different person then." He whispered over the pages. Sarek turned to a few more of Amanda's favorite passages before he set it back wearily to lie down and rest. He never dreamed, but a flittered memory glided into the room, filtered through a haze, though he couldn't discern what it was, just it was human and had a warm smile. It passed and he had no habit of reading into illusions of a tired mind not properly registering visual stimuli; he drifted off.

The computers alerted him that the ship was entered Vulcan space. Sarek rose to a second alert—a hail from the _USS Dresden_.

"Ambassador Sarek." He replied through the comm system as he went to the bridge for visuals.

"Ambassador; live long and prosper. This is Captain Edwards. Sir, I'm afraid we'll have to escort your ship away from Vulcan for a bit, there is a situation." The man's worried face appeared on the viewscreen as Sarek stepped onto the bridge and took a seat at flight control; his touch brought the controls back online.

"What is the situation?" Sarek asked Edwards.

"An Algean ship stole a Vulcan exploratory vessel three hours ago; the Ferengi have only now informed us. We were told by higher ups to find you when the news was received."

Sarek did not understand this development. "Then Algea does not yet have word of the Senate's conclusions? What is this ship's last known location?" he questioned.

"This all happened before we informed the Algean government. The ship was last seen near 40 Eridani A, heading towards Vulcan space." Captain Edwards explained.

Perrin, Sarek thought.

"Has Perrin Landover been informed?"

"Yes, Vulcan High Command has been alerted, as well as her guards; I'm sending down two teams to assist. Now Ambassador— _we need to move_. I think they want you dead more than her anyways." About to agree, Sarek saw his ship go to red alert as another vessel dropped from warp, quickly sidling his, opening fire.

"Shields at 60%." The computer announced. The viewscreen went blank—the bridge dimming to emergency lighting—though audio with Edwards continued. Sarek's small vessel was not equipped with weapons.

"Ambassador, move behind our shields!" Ordered Edwards. Phasers from the _USS Dresden_ fired on the smaller attacking ship; ruptures in their hull appeared instantly.

Imputing navigational commands, Sarek noted the stolen ship running parallel to his as he curved around to the stern of the _USS Dresden_. Attempting to lose the other ship, he engaged the warp engines to cover the distance to allow the _USS Dresden_ a clear shot. But his attacker turned in sharply and disrupted the warp fields before they could stabilize; Sarek would not be able to escape their parallel momentum without warp.

"We need you to move now, we can't fire on them this way!" Screamed someone over the ship's communications; Sarek switched to back to impulse, considering a new course of action, watching his attacker continue to move closer as though their intention was to ram his ship. Shields began to constrict and yield against their encroachment. Sarek left the bridge and ran for the engine room, remembering something Spock had spoken of to him when he first taught Sarek to pilot a starship.

Around the room were numerous screens, each offering control over different functions; he steadied himself in front of the plasma injector's and entered his command code. Ignoring a warning as he unfastened the container that stored the plasma injector, Sarek reached for the device and pushed it slightly to offset it over its housing. As he re-secured the container, an alert followed him back to the bridge.

"Warning, plasma injector malfunction; warp engine overload is possible." It was written out as well across the displays of flight control.

"I am aware." Commented Sarek as he blotted the alert. From the window he could see his attackers still bearing down on his ship. He contacted the _USS Dresden_.

"I will be dropping shields in 12 seconds. Can you have a transporter locked to me then for immediate beam out?" They acknowledged after a short silence.

Shields dropped; Sarek ran his earlier imputed command.

He was beamed from the bridge as his engines sent out an unstable warp field. It burst over the attacking ship and sent it, with its engines and any other functions made unoperational by the force, drifting away from the _USS Dresden_ and the planet of Vulcan.

* * *

Perrin set a few of the photos from the mantle in her father's cottage's living room next to her bed; they propped up her Vulcan Medical College flyer, and a small rectangular space was left to the side for when Sarek returned with the box from her loft. She knotted her hands remembering it. Perrin then moved back to look over the guesthouse, relieved to finally have a space of her own again, complete with the pictures. Her stand next to the wide French doors facing the cottage was covered with sheet music—her mother's copy of Ciaccona that Perrin had been practicing, trying to remember how she'd seen her mother play it in the library before bedtime as a child. And her clothes were neatly folded into the chest at the foot of the bed, her mismatched pajamas folded on top like at her loft in Paris; Perrin had slowly arranged the room to match its layout. She leaned down and prodded her shoes into a straighter line under the bedframe with a slight smile that came and went with the remembrance of why she was there, both her wish and her reality of it.

Nearly forgetting to, she stopped and opened the message on her PADD that Sarek had sent the night before.

She was pleased to see the investigation was over but now that fact made little difference. Lying in bed at dawn earlier, she had sent out a definitive answer to the Palais Garner Orchestra: she was humbled by their consideration but filling in the seat was no longer feasible. Perrin was going to remain on Vulcan and care for her father. After that, she leaned onto the handle of one of the doors as she thought with gaunt certainty that that wouldn't take long, Perrin hoped she could return to medical work.

When the caretaker challenged her over how to handle her father's increasingly severe symptoms, Perrin found herself standing down out of genuine trust; she trusted the other woman to take care of her father. She avoided the caretaker's personal questions when her father fell asleep, but Perrin didn't think she would ever be fully rid her gravitation towards secrecy. She felt like what had held her back for so long was changing since she had started to take care of her father; maybe she could actually return to her life that had been put on hold the day Safik, her last patient, died. Maybe—an image of Sarek flashed in her mind; she held her hand up to her lips and went outside.

Walking back to the house, she went over the coda of Ciaccona again, seeing her mother's bouncing bow backlit by an old lamp on the floor as she did so. But there was something off, she felt. Perrin stopped, listening, and followed around to the front of the house where a group of Starfleet security forces materialized.

"We've sighted her commander." One of the officers spoke to the communicator in his badge. All of them moved forward. The younger officers in the back coughed to cover up their fear-filled faces, which caught Perrin off guard, bring her heart up to her throat. She rushed into the cottage and for her father upstairs sleeping in his room. Slamming the door against the wall with her reckless momentum, Perrin rallied the caretaker, half asleep and confused as Perrin clapped her hands to get her to focus, to carry him into the chair. Perrin fought down her worry and molded it into alertness. The caretaker grabbed her father's legs as Perrin reached behind his shoulders, questioning Perrin as she did so.

"Something's happening, we need to move him." She answered commandingly. Both carried him into his chair across the room—he did not wake; a row of empty sedative hyposprays were on top of the dresser. To keep him straight, Perrin swaddled him in a blanket, tying the ends to the back of the chair. She pointed to the door and the caretaker moved him out. Perrin went back down the stairs to check outside as her father was taken down the lift.

The officers were now in the living room, one meeting her halfway up the stairs.

He shouted to her, "We need to evacuate!"

Three of her guards had joined the officers from their posts outside the guesthouse. Perrin was grabbed by her shoulder and led down to and almost outside, but at the threshold she pushed him away; a spark went flying past the space between them. It hit the mantle and snapped it off the fireplace, splintering it over where Perrin had fell to by the lift; tiny pricks dotted over her arms and face. Perrin looked back at several Algeans heavily armed with phaser rifles moving across the desert. Seeing her, they picked up their pace.

"Commander, they're too close now to beam her out." Said one of the officers, gesturing to Perrin.

"Is that the only way out?" He yelled to her.

"No; I will take her through the kitchen." Said one of her Vulcan guards. A cut on his arm oozed green.

Perrin picked herself up with the wheelchair. The caretaker was paralyzed by the sight of the Algeans and allowed her to move her father towards the kitchen.

Perrin gestured to him. "I will not leave him here." The guard did not argue but fell behind her, firing back at the Algeans as they raced through the kitchen.

None of the Algeans had made it around the cottage though their attack sounded violent and nearing as she pushed her father as quickly away as she could manage. Her guard reached around to grab the back of the chair and add his strength to Perrin's; she moved to the side of the chair to allow him more leverage.

"There!" The guard pointed to a rocky formation that offered plenty of cover. They headed for it, hearing the fight inside increase. But a piece of it followed them and Perrin heard phaser fire approaching closely.

The guard twisted back and fired; he stumbled in place as his attacker crashed into the ground. Two trailing officers tried to provide cover, more Algeans were cutting free from their defenses, but were caught returning fire. Perrin started forward as the guard continued to stumble and his eyes glazed slightly. She could she the wound pouring out green blood that made the ground look as though grass was growing up from where he stood. But she looked down at her father before she could help the guard and red blood pooled down his chest though the spirts were rapidly slowing and then stopped to just what gravity could push out. His eyes were unmoved by Perrin's collapsing in front of the chair, taking in something she wasn't prepared for.

As though she was injured, Perrin felt the wound boring into her own heart.

She shaped that agony into a steading force, to focus her efforts in finding something to do to save him. She scraped at her father's arm, pulling it to her and feeling for a pulse. Nothing. She leaned back his head and seared deeply into his eyes an impression of need for him to be alive, but they were not impressed and revealed nothing. Her agony reared itself now and she began pinching him, looking for a reaction; Perrin pinched all up his arms, his neck, his ankles. She hit the ground in frustration as he stayed lifeless.

She felt a tug; Perrin held onto the frame of the wheelchair as one of the officers who had managed to escape the fighting tried to pull her up.

"No! Please you must not leave him; there could still be time!" she shouted. He wrenched her fingers free and dragged her back towards the desert, shouting into his communicator over Perrin continuing to rebel against him.

"We have her; beam us out now man!"

She thrashed against the sand, keeping an eye on her father's body that had been knocked from the wheelchair by an ensign falling from an attack. She squirmed against the grip of the officer holding her and her perspective of the scene widened as she attempted to get back to her father's body.

Near the cottage, the caretaker had taken one of the fire pokers to disarm the Algeans bearing on her. Another group of officers and the rest of the Vulcan guards hid at the sides of the cottage, holding off another swell of attacks approaching from the front. One officer fell and a Vulcan dragged him into the guesthouse, returning to his position that favored the heaviest phaser fire. The Vulcans were unmoved and faster in pushing back against the Algeans while the officers picked off those who had attempted to circumvent them: running over the roof, breaking through the windows. The desert sand being kicked up in it all added a translucent wall between her and the fighting.

But before she beamed out, Perrin saw the guard that had come with her lying face down, his hand cradling the wound on his abdomen; she remembered the Vulcan heart was located where the human liver was. He was still.

"No." She breathed. They beamed onto the _USS Dresden_ with the silent withdrawal of her control burning away in the glare of the similarities to a day Perrin felt she shouldn't forget but equally now saw she had.


	19. Chapter 19

With each incoming report tensions increased on the bridge of the _USS Dresden_ ; the science officers searched the databases for profiles on the Algeans, muttering about their weak points though the fight was spread out enough for this information to be useless. Ten minutes after the Algeans began to fire on Reynard's house they were finally unarmed and subdued. Sarek waited sliently by the captain's chair for a final report from the ground.

"Three dead." One of the officers informed.

"Who?" Asked Edwards. He leaned forward towards the viewscreen though the voice came from the comm built into the armrest.

"One Algean, a Vulcan, and an older man; we aren't sure who yet but the target seemed pretty upset. They just beamed her up to Transporter Room 3." Edwards messaged his temples with a sigh.

"Can you please you a different term? And stop watching those old Earth movies." The officer acknowledged with an embarrassed stutter. To properly assess Perrin's condition, Sarek headed towards the transporters, but Edwards stopped him and waved to his second officer to escort Sarek down.

Sarek noted the red alert was still active as he and the officer stepped out of the turbo lift. A logical precaution, he noted. Every crewmember out in the halls rushed to their destinations and pulled them along in their urgency; They reached the transporter room soon after Perrin was beamed up, still being examined for wounds.

"I was not injured, I am fine." Sarek heard her say after he and the officer entered; they stood apart from the group surrounding Perrin. A nurse was leaning over her, weaving a tricorder around Perrin's body. His black eyes hinted to Sarek that he was betazoid. The nurse crouched down and looked at her with a frown after the tricorder confirmed she wasn't hurt.

"I was informed by this gentleman here that you had appeared to be upset. I sense now that you are not well." Perrin stood up in response and held her head high.

"And I know a great deal more about my own state of mind than you; I say I am fine. That will be the end of it." Sarek watched the nurse eye her suspiciously but ultimately decline to challenge her. The second officer started forward but Sarek raised his hand.

"I will speak with Ms. Perrin alone." Everyone looked to him uncertainly but left. Sarek stayed, studying Perrin whose face wilted to complete despondence when the others had all finally gone. The doors closed with a swish and Sarek moved towards her to which Perrin looked up, her gaze falling quickly back to the floor. He paused. Noting the corners of her lips were turned down severly, he was unsure what to say.

She began to turn away but Sarek stepped with her movement her as she did.

He forced a diplomatically solemn tone, "Perrin; I grieve with thee."

"Sarek." She responded faintly. She brought her hands up as though to push him away. Waiting for her act, Sarek did not move as her hands hovered closer to his chest, balled tightly. Finally moving around him, Perrin exited the room. He picked up from her a short, shuttered breath as she continued away.

* * *

Three days after his death, Reynard's funeral was attended by Sarek, Perrin, and a local minister; Sarek's aides had remained behind on Vulcan to assist Kavik with the fallout from the final Algean attack and Perrin's guards had been recalled to a new assignment with all the attackers detained and awaiting trial. And from the small church of piled stone to the graveyard boarded by it where Reynard's family had been laid to rest for generations, no one minded them beyond a brief degree of acknowledgement of the casket leading along, held up on Sarek's shoulder with no other pallbearers to take the weight.

He strode in first to the mausoleum at the center of the cemetery. Wide and constructed with a smooth gray marble, Sarek noted the traditional Christian motifs remained though Reynard had admitted to him once that his family had long since ceased to follow any religion like most humans. He gently slid the coffin below a niche engraved: _Françoise Landover, Qui craint de souffrir, il souffre déjà de ce qu'il craint_. As he stepped back, the angel recesses cut out of the marble of the walls appeared to lean nearer to the coffin. Their intended effect, Sarek mused solemnly as the shadows also darkened the edges of their noses like tears.

The ceremony was brief; he and Perrin stood through it without reaction. At the end, Sarek walled off the coffin with a slab of granite laying to the side. _Reynard Landover, Petit à petit, l'oiseau fait son nid_. Sarek read his old associate's epitaph engraved into it with mute agreement.

There was a small coin sitting outside the mausoleum that Sarek had not seen going in. He picked it up and noted a chocolate scent coming from it. Turning it over did not show any bits of food on it, but there was a seam along the edge that Sarek picked under. His peeling it off as Perrin and the minister went around him and talked reverently about her father revealed that it was solid chocolate. He brought the uncovered coin up to his face and noticed someone move between the tombs and headstones.

They tripped and turned back slightly so Sarek could see their face; it was Tim Valor. Holding a trembled finger to his lips, Valor disappeared where he was. Sarek looked up as though he might be able to see the ship that Valor had transported onto. Attempting to retain a lost clarity, he searched the sky for the location of a man he was not certain he'd ever known. He tossed the coin into the mausoleum and then shut its doors, latching it with a chain that had been taken off earlier; Sarek turned away from markers of two humans he was no closer to understanding.

The minister left them halfway back to Perrin's childhood home. With him gone and the path mostly empty, Perrin kept a little closer to Sarek than when they had carried her father's body to rest. He felt her brush absently against him several times.

She seemed to close in on herself as they came to the château he'd partly seen in one of the photo's Reynard had kept on his fireplace mantle. Covered in ivy, the doors and windows were the only things kept clear of the crawling plants. From the small gate to the door took longer to get to than that morning as she slowed her pace.

"Ms. Perrin." She did not answer; he elected to stay quiet as they went in.

Sarek lingered in the foyer; Perrin ascended the wide staircase to the second floor. He watched her struggle to hold onto the rail as she dragged her feet along the steps. And even a Vulcan's hearing could scarcely pick up the squeak of the hinges as she softly went into her room with the silent force of lethargy. Sarek debated following. He did not hear the door close behind her; he did hear her sob quietly, the sound floating through the house and increasing as it vibrated between the beams that held up the château. He went up.

Perrin was sitting in a chair that faced out the window in a way that had the shadows fanning through the room, and the walls receding like a cavern. He stepped over the sheets falling off at the end of her bed; he recalled her neat loft in Paris. Sarek kneeled in front of her and after a short while she looked at him.

"Ms. Perrin." He repeated in the same tone from their walk back.

Her response was dry, "I'm not sure what to do Sarek." She picked at the fabric of her dress. He waited in response.

"I—" she choked over her words, "I let someone else die again. I thought that I was improving, that trusting people would be enough but I just cannot do the only thing I really ever have wanted to do; protect—help people."

Sarek considered deeply what he wanted to say.

"You have helped me Perrin." He replied, daring to speak so she could hear. She did not react.

"My father; my grandmother, the whole reason I wanted to become a doctor; Tatk, my guard that died protecting me; Safik; and they are all gone without me being able to help them. Some of them dead because of me."

"What could have been done for them?"

"More." She gazed back out the window, tears now rolling down her face.

"Someone other than me could have done more by the virtue of not being me. Sarek, I simply don't know what to do."

He reached out and grazed his fingers along her arm, resting them over her hand. She looked at him with vacant surprise.

"She who was my wife was to meet with her family after many years without seeing them when she died. It would be illogical of me to place blame in myself for this. She had had chances to see them; she was not confined to Vulcan. It would be illogical." He whispered. Perrin stared into his eyes and he looked away, acknowledging a hidden part of him he'd allowed her to see.

He turned to the window to see what it viewed.

Out onto the horizon, unimpeded, an expanse of wildflowers mixed with the tall field grass beyond a short patio and well kept lawn. Framed by the window, the view gave the appearance of a snapshot into a place. Sarek presumed for Perrin it was into a time. A table was visible when he moved closer to the window. Three chairs surrounded it though the heavy coating of rust on each suggested their use was hazardous. And in the whole of the house he had seen while staying there since the previous day in a small attic guest room, that effect of disuse was present. Like Amanda's apartment from her teaching days that she had never sold, the château just was, gathering dust. Like his villa had when he left for Excalbia; its occupants didn't need it.

He was aware of Perrin's hand hovering over his shoulder.

"Sarek. Normally I can do something about these feelings but now I just don't know what to do." Perrin said, searching him for something.

"There is a Vulcan meditation technique that might assist you. It is often the first thing a Vulcan will teach their child when beginning their journey to logic." He replied.

Sarek kneeled back down by her chair, keeping a short distance this time and his hands crossed. He began to guide her through the process.

"Close your eyes." Wiping away her tears, she did so.

"Imagine yourself in an ocean. It is most unsettled. The waves are crashing on you. But you—" he paused to examine her; Perrin bit her lip as she concentrated, "have control over this ocean. As you calm, it calms with you. It knows your thoughts; it conforms to them. To your will. The waves will stop; the water will smoothen."

He allowed her to focus and rolled back onto his feet when his knees began to ache slightly even in the lower gravity of Earth. As he started to stand, she grabbed his hand and opened her eyes.

"Sarek; I don't feel-."

"Yes, you will Perrin. I will aide you; give me your thoughts." Reaching out, Sarek touched his fingers to the melding points on her head. He did not grasp for the whole of her mind; only extending far enough to touch Perrin's emotions, to imbue them with his discipline. He waited for her shut her eyes again. He could feel the storm of grief, loss, guilt, sorrow, and despairing rage that had struck down her attempts to tame them; they did not seem strange to his mind, but familiar. To quiet all of it he pushed further than intended and forced himself into the vision of the raging waters Perrin held to. _Calm your mind_ , he thought to her as the vision of herself struggled to stay above the waves. He was next to her in the water now, soaked through the heavy robes he wore though, as the ocean was an exercise in control, it did not pull him deeper. Perrin struggled and choked on the water. _Calm your mind,_ he repeated.

The waters remained turbulent. He sent out more of his will, forcing the currents around him to steady.

The calm spread out, first from him then from Perrin to form ripples that parted the waters onto an unseen point and left the still of a mirror behind.

Still holding onto her mind as they both rose out of the image and back to her room, he felt flushed when Perrin looked up at him with a heavy glance. Her eyes pulled him closer and he touched the heat rising from her thoughts, separate from the emotions they had pushed back. As Perrin bent towards him he paused but she continued.

Sarek closed his eyes and retreated into himself; pulling into his mind as though he could do nothing to stop Perrin, and she came so close the only distance was imagined. Her lips dragged across his to the side of his face, around to the tips of his ear, they traced across his cheeks to do the same on the other side, and slid back down to his jaw. To try to retreat further into his thoughts, Sarek found that impossible as her lips held to that point between his face and neck. Perrin had pulled him out into the room with her again. He grabbed her lips between his and nearly moved to pull in the rest of her closer, but that much he could hold himself back from, Perrin's body still against the chair as he allowed her to dictate his actions, not his discipline.


	20. Chapter 20

Sarek went to the library, blinking when the stairs blurred halfway down. He listened closely to her as he descended, ignoring his brief lapse in sight, lingering at the doorway to hear whether Perrin had gone to sleep. It took a moment but a small squeak from the springs of her mattress reached him. He went in.

Over everything was a quiet veil of dust that parted as he crossed to the desk between the ornate, trimmed bookcases on the right side of the room. He pulled out a heavy chair tucked beneath the desk without effort and collapsed in it with an exhaustion of the mind: his consciousness seemed to view everything from the ground. Outside it was getting dark enough for the arms of the chair to seem like shadows.

Sarek lit a small lamp with an old lighter in one of the drawers to see properly. The whole library condensed to him as the muted light darkened the rest of the room.

He could not say that he had slipped back into the state he had possessed by for the two years following his wife's death, he was aware of his emotions and the waters of his mind were still as he studied the etches in the wood of the desk top. Yet he had not acted with Perrin in a purely diplomatic manner. He had conceded to a need that, it was clear to him now, would not be satisfied with her infrequent companionship alone. He brought the light closer to him and breathed deeply. Ignoring the creeks of the house, Sarek turned into himself.

 _Though such things are in my nature, to look to Perrin on the matter would be illogic—_

 _There was no more rust on the chairs outside. He drew his hand along it and felt the smooth white paint under his hands with a feeling of content at the sensation. The air was cold though Perrin sat across from him playing in shorts and a loose blouse. He gathered his cloak closer around himself and listened to her; it pleased him as it always did. And the sound of her violin escaped into the wild hills, not returning for him to savor muted as an echo as in the house behind him. Sarek asked Perrin to play again. She smiled and did._

 _And he knew looking on this scene—captured by it, a part of it, feeling the sensations of himself in the chair though he could see over everything simultaneously—it was meant to be an extension of a life having been lived in that way for a while. A Vulcan lyre rested near his feet and a few statues of Vulcan art were scattered through the field beyond the château; he knew his books of Surak's life and teachings were in the library and a patch of Plomeek grew out along the path leading to the house, their house. He looked at Perrin and knew here she was his wife. He had given her a ring like those Amanda sometimes had looked at longingly on the human diplomats she met after marrying him. On Sarek's left hand was an identical one._

 _When the playing stopped he went to her and bent down to kiss her without hesitation. He lifted her slightly against him from the chair; setting her down when she became less eager, breathless. He studied her eyes and allowed her to rest until she reached back towards his lips and bit softly on them before picking up where they'd stopped._

 _"I love you Sarek." She spoke through the kiss. The world was shaded over with colorless gray in response. Sarek could only give one answer._

 _"I cannot return it."_

 _"I know, but this is enough." Answered Amanda, now resting back against the chair instead of Perrin, no ring on her finger. Around them was her small apartment in San Fransico but her wrought iron bed, row of plants on the stills, and Alice in Wonderland figurines had been replaced with his own things entirely. They so filled up the space that Sarek could conceive of no way to fit her things in._

 _"This is enough."_

He woke up still in the library. Snuffing the lamp, Sarek decided to meditate in his room to get away from his dream.

* * *

Picturing calming waves helped as she stood in the kitchen making coffee; that image wouldn't hold though. She went out to the patio and ignored the fields of mint her neighbor had told her was something her father had started shortly after being released. They expanded widely to cover the view just beyond the house and really only be seen at the edges of the tall grass dwarfing the sprigs if you did not walk through it as she had when she'd arrived two days ago.

But she couldn't stop her eyes from catching it while the scent wafted up to the house or her mind remembering when he'd kissed her back.

All night she twisted between wishing Sarek would come into her room again to still the waters and knowing, like the day at his villa when she'd seen the extent of his grief, he would never speak of it outside of another break down she could never wish for. Picturing that day on Vulcan when her father died and when she realized enough about herself to finally be sure she couldn't help people the way she wanted to, which vied for attention against other currents sapping her will, Perrin saw the mental tremors seeping into her hands, shaking her coffee over her thick socks. Mindlessly, she dropped the cup onto the stone and walked off, wringing her hands to keep them steady. She didn't want to focus on anything that would veer too close to those things eating away at her. I cannot think about it, ignore it, ignore it; you know you can't handle thinking about it now and the lawyers will be here in the afternoon, she reminded herself. They needed to go over her father's will and transfer Federation benefits.

Deeply focused on keeping her mind blank, Perrin realized standing over Sarek still asleep in bed that she'd wandered into the attic. She wasn't surprised she had; her father never liked the attic of their country house and she had went up here after her mother died in the evenings for a few minutes or so almost everyday. She liked the silence, the calm. Sarek's sleeping with his hands evenly at his side and his robes thin but formal fit the space well. Embarrassed she'd wandered up and even stood staring down at Sarek, Perrin backed away from the bed to leave. As she did, she saw two boxes in the corner of her eye on top of a chest. She recognized the left one.

"It was my intention to give it to you but I became uncertain after your father's death on Vulcan." Perrin heard Sarek's voice shift and looked back at him sitting on the edge of the bed, not quite meeting her eyes. He nodded to the box, gesturing a hand for her to take it. Wanting to get down stairs quickly, half-thinking of the previous night and worried he was too since his face appeared extremely guarded, Perrin lifted the lid slightly to check it's contents. She slammed it back down and picked up the box, holding a little behind herself.

"Is there something wrong?" Sarek asked, not moving and still looking beyond her.

Perrin choked on her words. "I just—simply realized I should throw them out." Opening the box away from her so Sarek could see, she hoped that would make what was inside seem less important, she showed him her old things.

"A Starfleet badge. What is the purpose of the papers?" Perrin gave a quick glance down.

"This was a fake diploma, a prank one of the other students played. The rest are some important class notes." Perrin waited for a reply when he closed his eyes after she spoke.

"I trust you will not be throwing out the box. I had noticed one of similar character in a museum in Washington D.C." Sarek stated.

"I will leave it here when we leave." Sarek's stare became more distant in response, which Perrin noticed with panic. Her thoughts from earlier were pushing ahead, her loose idea of Sarek staying falling away completely when a small Vulcan ship appeared in the field, something that did not seem affect him at all.

"I was not aware there was an expectation I would remain for an extended time. I will return to Vulcan today, I saw no reason to remain with my respects paid and the investigation satisfied."

Perrin took a while to reply. "There wasn't any expectation, but it would be only logical for you to tell me you were planning on leaving the day after the funeral."

"Why would this be logical?"

"Because, ambassador, you were married to a human and have worked among them for years. Surely you would consider staying as it would be the human way, which you logically would know." She averted her eyes. "I don't expect humanness from you but I do expect you to consider some things that would only be diplomatic."

Perrin wanted to continue to explain but she knew all that was left was her pain and unless Sarek questioned it, she had no intentions of bringing it up to him. His eyes finally looked to hers and seemed concerned but she couldn't trust her instinct to view his expression that way. It seems I cannot trust my judgment still, she mourned to herself, remembering so many things and the day, her father's trail, on which she wished she'd definitively learned that lesson so she wouldn't have to now.

"Perrin why do you refer to me as ambassador? Do you assume my leaving is a sign of deception? Honesty is a prevailing trait of the Vulcan race; I have not lied to you." Said Sarek.

"I did not assume so." Looking outside as his aides came out of the ship, she continued through the increasing coarseness of her throat. "Live long and prosper ambassador, it seems I woke up a little to early this morning." Perrin smiled and yawned. She went back to her room and stood in the middle so she wouldn't have to look directly out the window to see when the ship took off. Sarek left an hour later, and she heard him slowly pass her door before quickly meeting his aides and departing. With the house empty the past few days came crashing onto Perrin's shoulders, heaving her onto her knees with the weight of Sarek's departure added to it all.


	21. Chapter 21

Over a month, the pictures from her father's cottage on Vulcan sat on a spotless shelf Perrin had installed by her bed and had spent their time waiting to be unsettled from the rigor draped over her loft by a thin covering of neglect. She kicked away some of the ripped up sheets of music all over the floor and remembered to water her mint plant, dusted and hunched. She put down the mug coffee she'd been pacing with on a wicker chair covered in snow. Outside, she breathed in the sharp wind before grabbing a partly frozen glass of lemonade. Waste not, want not, Perrin thought blankly. The balcony doors hadn't been fully shut. She didn't notice as she went back in.

Only a stained shirt before, now the kitchen corner was taken over by massive amounts of replicated clothing. Perrin didn't care. Both ends of her street were capped with boutiques and she'd had a replicator installed a week after returning. She had settled in; withdrew her rejection of The Palais Garner Orchestra's offer; and over the time between returning and now blankly pouring stale lemonade to refresh her already dead plant though she loss any interest in it to note that, she kept the image of a calm ocean in her mind by ignoring the currents below. She was back to trusting no one, including herself, and had forgotten why she'd trusted Sarek. Didn't want to know why she did.

Back on the balcony, she picked up her violin but did not continue playing; she'd already forgotten about the coffee and didn't see it. Below her the streets were empty. She grabbed her coat, went down, and started to wander.

She passed the boutiques; the clerk's called her in with PADDs showing new designs. She smiled faintly and went on.

She passed a small café with two Vulcans that waved a press of fresh coffee at her with restrained desperation; she reminded them that they shouldn't ignore their customers and continued.

She passed a small trio of trumpet players and asked them if they enjoyed playing for others. They answered that they felt happier with each person swaying to their sound; she passed them too and went on without aim.

"Hey; stop! Stop!" Recognizing his voice, she did. Darrin had caught her turning at the end of her street. He looked for hovercars and went over to Perrin with a wide smile, reaching for a hug. Allowing him, she took a quick step back to take in her old quartet leader.

"Perrin, I heard you're playing at The Palais Garner."

"Oh, you recognized me in the middle of everyone, how nice; did you see a show?" she asked.

"No, but Abe knows one of the flutist—Ryan Dockett."

"He's very good." Darrin responded with a shrug.

"I wouldn't know." He stated.

Holding his hand out and remembering something and quickly shoving it into his coat pocket, he started to walk by her side towards an old library that had been shut down for decades.

When they got closer Darrin spoke up, "You know, about like a week after you patched me up, you know that day those things—"

"Algeans." Perrin corrected.

"Yeah; when they attacked, that next week I finally remembered something. You know how I hate doctors." He stated, looking to her with a uncertain squint.

"Yes?"

"Well I also had this feeling the whole time you were filling in for Thomas that I had seen you somewhere. And I remembered that I had just in time for you to get spirited away." He pulled down his collar and a slight scar peeked out.

"Do you remember fixing this up for me when I was like 15?"

She felt a flicker of genuine happiness with the reminder; her only living patient. Her fingers reached out instantly with excitement and pulled his collar down a bit further. Realizing what she was doing she glanced up to Darrin who waved away her concern. Looking back to his neck, she traced the even snitching with wonder.

"I didn't think it would turn out this well; does your family still avoid modern medicine?" She asked, recalling his mother's fearful expression then.

"Like the plague, which, ironically, my uncle Dave came down with a while a ago."

Pulling up his collar, he asked, "Why didn't you think it would look good? Were you really just the janitor at the time; you always seemed to like everything in a rice neat row." He teased.

"No, I was a intern—I just," she paused, "I lost a patient earlier in the day. He was a Vulcan that had been exposed to a great deal of trellium-D and had passed. I assumed it was just pon farr since such cases are so rare." Darrin responded with surprise.

"Aww, man. I'm sorry."

"It's fine." She turned away. Darrin was not convinced.

"Sure? I don't like pressing you but I did hear about your dad, apparently you saw the whole thing; what I heard."

Perrin did not reply and smiled softly before realizing he couldn't see her charade standing behind her. She could hear him balancing his weight from one foot to the other. He wants to say something, she thought, but waved away the idea not willing to trust it.

"Where's that one other Vulcan guy? He was asking about you the day of the attack, Mia says you were at his place the whole time we couldn't get ahold of you."

"I was staying at his niece's apartment."

"Okay then. Well, he seemed really, really concerned about you that day. Was worried he might throw me into orbit."

"Vulcans do not get emotional. Especially not Sarek." She defended.

"So that's who it was. Anyways, Sarek, that guy, maybe he wasn't going to make me a satellite but he sure as hell was worried about you man. I'm kinda worried about you too, seeing you. Thomas is still stuck on planet red tape; the new guy is awful, we'd love to have you back."

"I love working with the orchestra." Perrin responded.

By then they had reached the abandoned library. Darrin glanced at her, incredulous, and shrugged his shoulders. He started up the steps of the library, slipping on some ice but regaining his balance smoothly. Perrin stayed at the bottom as he went up to the rotted out doors. Slowly stretching out his hand, it was slapped away by unseen force. A sign on one of the Grecian columns by Perrin caught her attention and she glided to it to see what it said.

"Private property; no admittance. Force field around premises." She read loudly for Darrin. He was disappointed, and went around the landing poking at the field but was always stopped from actually touching the building. He viewed through a large crack in the wall.

"No more books."

"I would doubt they would have left any." There was also no roof and Perrin saw around Darrin enough to notice some of the snow Paris had gotten managed to keep on the furniture left behind. She wondered absently if there was a place on Vulcan where it could snow. An image of Sarek flittered in her mind but she pushed away the thought. She called for Darrin to come back to the street so they could continue as long as it would take for him to convince him she was fine. He stayed.

"Come up here I wanted to ask you something." He asked loudly.

"What? I can hear you well from here." she said; Darrin looked nervous at her reply. He shifted his balance. Stopping, he leaned out to stare around the street.

"I don't think you love working there. And I don't think you'd love working with us again. Why? What changed? I know its can't all just be about your father—tell me about this Vulcan guy."

"Sarek?" Perrin deflected.

"Nope; the patient."

She didn't want speak. She wanted to stay silent and have him let it go but he stayed above her, keeping his eyes bearing onto her with an intensity she wouldn't have imagined from him before. When he plays the cello he plays like that, Perrin thought. And she continued to think until she decided just to answer.

"I had met someone I thought I could trust when I was young, a family friend. But I shouldn't have; because of him I lost my family and I stopped feeling like I could trust people. It changed me completely. I always wanted to be a doctor after my grandmother got sick when I was young; it was a way to really help people. But when my patient, Safik, died I realized I couldn't help people the way I was. The way I am still, I discovered on Vulcan. Too distrustful, to focused on one thing; those aren't good traits for a good doctor. I'm too protective. And perhaps they didn't have a chance but I knew if they did they still would have died because of me. The way I am I just can't be a doctor or a surgeon. So I play the violin because my mother was good at it, and she taught me to be just as good. I'm not helping anyone now just playing songs, sitting on a stage."

Snow came down then. On everything it rested lightly and on the juniper trees dividing the street, it brought out their deep unfading green. Perrin tried to recall how far away she was from her apartment and pulled her coat closer around her. The snow filled up the sky and weighted her pockets, wetted her hands that she had stuffed in them, and weighted the knot in Darrin's brow as he came back down to Perrin. He stuck out his tongue and caught a few flakes.

"Maybe you'll never be a doctor but you sell yourself short on the music. You see I really only care about it for two reasons; either I love the player or I love the playing. You're both man. Hell, one of the reasons I went with you in the first place after Thomas got caught stealing priceless cultural stuff was my nephew."

He got quiet and wandered out into the street that was strangely vacant though they were outside of the normal tourist areas of Paris. More clouds rolled in.

"You did a concert at Elizabeth Tucker's Children's Hospital; my cousin was there. After you played he talked about you a lot. He was supposed to die oh, like two and a half weeks after you left. He talked about your playing and begged to learn the violin for the whole five months he ended up living." He kicked at the ground, kicking up a swirl of snow.

"I really like to hear you play, and I like to watch the wheels turn in your eyes even when you're just saying hello to people. When you're good it helps people, no matter what it is you're good at. I think who you are is good man; it might not always work out, being like you are, but you should keep trying anyways. And I'm glad you trusted me enough to tell me all that about you." Darrin finished.

Not quite facing him, Perrin reached out and grabbed his arm, thankful for what he said. She felt her guilt ebb slightly, not completely. Just keeping remembering this, she thought to herself of what Darrin had said. Placing his hand over hers, Darrin and she remained there for a while before leaving separately without goodbyes. When she got back to her loft, she sorted all her clothes, washed the dishes, and polished her violin thoroughly. She could see her eyes clearly in the reflection of the wood and felt a sliver of her old pride coming up through the waters.

* * *

"Do you have any mint tea?" Perrin asked the Vulcan co-owner Taal. They raised a questioning eyebrow and pointed to a pot of water heating over the fireplace they had reopened.

"The water is there; Skor will go to the market and get some mint Mademoiselle Perrin." She raised her voice at this last part and Skor came out from the kitchen, absently placing a cupcake on the counter pointing to a tall man standing near it. Alarmed, Perrin stood up and held off Skor from leaving, telling them both she'd just have coffee though she lost her taste for it after seeing Darrin. Even surrounded by Frenchmen, these two still act like this, Perrin thought with some embarrassment, sheepishly smiling at the other customers. Skor and Taal went to the back.

Her coffee was piping hot and fresh; the other table glared at her, spitting their stale coffee back into their cups. To emphasize, they knocked into her as they got up and left. Skor and Taal paid them no mind. Perrin knew that she would not be able to think within blatant view of their interest. From the counter they both intently watched Perrin drink as she shifted her seat towards the wall screen. Not really meaning to watch it at all, she looked out into the snow, the now near weekly storms allowed to persist despite the _Le Pouvoir de le Temps_ 's official recommendation that the weather patterns be adjusted to something moderate. She lifted herself out of the seat trying to make out her loft through the thick snowfall. She'd left the lights on to find it, like a lamp faintly lit for her to see; Perrin was relieved when she spotted it. She'd walked past her building a few times coming back from the Palais Garner, meandering until the juniper trees stopped and were replaced by renaissance statutes of ancient generals.

Settling back down to finish her coffee, Perrin glanced back at the counter and picked up on something familiar on the screen as she did. It was Sarek. Not expecting that, she nearly dropped her cup but remembered it and set it down on the table. The text was in French so she was able to read what it was about.

"The ambassador's chief of staff has just briefed the Bureau of Planetary Treaties on the matter, stating the incident with the Legarians was a minor oversight which has already been resolved." The screen moved onto a new piece of news from there as though the previous piece was trivial. To Perrin it was not. Sarek was something she couldn't resolve in her life.

She got out her PADD and looked over the 2 symphony pieces that were to be played tomorrow. She could see the notes but the song they made escaped her as she held onto her concern. She tried to focus on the idea that if she played well it might mean something for someone even if she wouldn't see the results as with being a doctor, which she was beginning to accept. She pictured the rhythm of the song and only saw the image of Sarek as he had floated across from her in the waves, helping to dampen them the day of the funeral.

* * *

Three and a half months since she'd returned to Earth. Perrin had spent most of this night, after the end of Starfleet's memorial dinner for Doctor Phlox, talking with Dr. McCoy. He had seemed pleasantly surprised to Perrin who noticed the drawl in his voice coming out heavier while he rolled on his feet as they spoke. Waiting for the depot terminal to find her an available hovercar, Perrin admitted to herself that she was very happy they'd talked. Much like with Valor, her feelings of guilt seemed to subside somewhat from it. She also admitted, following the line of holographic light that guided to the hovercar the depot had chosen for her, that she felt a deep grief for the reminder in seeing so many medical officers that night of the final death of her lifelong dream. She looked at them and knew she couldn't do what they did and be there that night too.

She'd set aside her mother's violin two weeks ago, not wanting to replace the worn strings, and bought a new one, keeping the old case with the broken bow beneath the lining as a reminder. The new played far better. High and low tones rung clearer to enunciate the emotion of whatever song she played. She felt, keeping an eye on her audience for every performance, that this change left them more affected. She'd been very proud of the tears in even McCoy's eyes tonight for her solo number.

It could all be enough.

Pushing in the pin number given by the terminal, she placed the violin in the trunk and backed the hovercar out, putting it in manual drive since traffic was minimal. The depot had been empty except her by the time Dr. McCoy had finally grown tired.

The memorial dinner was in San Francisco; she passed over the golden gate bridge and saw from the floodlights Starfleet's Campus. She hunched over the controls to see it better. The hovercar jerked to the left as she did. To correct it, Perrin braked slowly then pulled to the side. Perrin looked over the dashboard and saw no cautions; she looked out the hovercar where nothing was on the road. I suppose I simply caught the wheel without realizing, she thought.

Before merging back in, an alert appeared on her communicator. She transferred the call to the on-board monitor. Sakkath's face appeared.

"Ms. Perrin; live long and prosper." She accidently responded with a salute of both hands. Sakkath did not correct her. She rubbed her eyes; her vision had been getting somewhat blurry.

"Sakkath, how nice. Why have you called?" She thought for a moment, curious, "How did you reach me?"

"I was able to retrieve your channel from the Federation records. I have called to say I grieve with thee; I heard about your father 2 days ago. Despite his former position, his death was not discussed here at the Federation Embassy."

"I'm not surprised Sakkath." She answered solemnly; she did not elaborate. I suppose he'll never find redemption, Perrin thought of her father.

She was not certain what to say to Sakkath. She acknowledged a part of her wanted to end the call with him but she also recognized a pattern of behavior in doing that, were she to. Pressing on one of the controls, she rolled the window down to let in some of the damp air blooming up from the bay. Her breathing it in helped sharpen that feeling she wanted to avoid. That she had avoided: regret. Sarek came to the forefront of her mind.

She had accepted him leaving. The investigation was over, she repeated Sarek's own reasoning, there was no logical reason for him to stay. She acknowledged that she wished he had and had thought in the back of her mind he might have desired to. The darkness of the night crawled in and deepened; the lights from the campus dimmed to her. She watched till the wind calmed and the waters too.

Finally she knew what to say. "Do you know of anyone whom could teach me Vulcan meditation?"

Sakkath considered this. "I am not certain. I know of no one at the Vulcan Embassy on Earth. However, Sarek would be the most logical person to ask. He is quite known for his restraint, even among Vulcans." Sakkath replied. Perrin treaded lightly in her answer.

"I'm afraid I forgot to ask for his channel before I left; I wouldn't know how to contact him." Replied Perrin.

"I work in the same building as he, I can—" She stopped him.

"No! No, it is fine. I simply feel the best thing would be to find someone here on Earth or someone who is not as busy as the ambassador is." She knew herself well enough to predict how she would react to Sarek: the same way she had seeing her father at the fire plans after so long, with a lingering degree of pain from his abandonment when she had needed him the most. Only with Sarek, his reasons were rooted in logic and thus—Perrin saluted Sakkath and ended the call to drive in thought—irrefutable.


	22. Chapter 22

Sarek pulled down on the rope outside the entrance of the monastery of P'Jem. He noted the artificial weathering that had been applied following from previous records when the structure had been rebuilt. Behind where the monastery teetered over a steep valley, the trees were still young and mapped the destruction of the original buildings for many miles down. Sarek ran his hand over the leaves of one sapling spilling over the wall about him, which defined the space. As he did so, one of the monks answered his ringing and welcomed him in with little elaboration to the reception hall, access to the rest of the monastery hidden behind a folding screen. After giving a measured salute, Sarek was then guided by a novice monk, he jumped and his cheeks flushed like the dewy grass of Earth when seeing Sarek, to the top of P'Jem: a tower that overlooked the valley and provided a balanced and connected location to meditate. He had seen the man who'd sent for him there as he'd walked up to the monastery.

The novice left him at the top of the tower with the other the man, an elderly Vulcan master who had served Sarek's grandfather Solkar aboard the _T'Plana-Hath_ towards the end of its service. There were few still alive whom Sarek was obligated to stand silent before. He waited until the other man motioned for him to speak.

"Sakal'la; I see thee has retained thy youth into your 243 years."

"Sarek; I hear your words and see thy grandfather. Come and sit." Replied Sakal'la. Sitting on a bench, he moved slightly to allow room for Sarek to which Sarek bowed slightly. The creatures of the planet moved softly but their movement was heard from the highest point of the monastery anyways. Sakal'la bent towards a sharp growl as though he was distracted but spoke clearly to Sarek as he did.

"Others may see one of much wisdom but I still see thee as the young boy who wished to please his father." Sarek did not respond to the comment. He cut back the subdued feeling of shame deep in him at the recognition of a need of his youth. Though my body would protest, I have not in these long years aged much, Sarek mused, unable to refute the words of a Vulcan master who knew him well.

"In what of my actions has this youthfulness appeared to you?" Asked Sarek, aware that there were many recent events for Sakal'la to call him for. The shame seemed to swish around in his head, chased from crevice to crook by a wilted mind; Sarek could feel the weight of the past months on him.

"It has appeared in reports of thy actions 3 days and 47 hours ago—the Legarians. A, as the humans would say, rookie mistake for a seasoned diplomat: forgetting about the curtains."

"They were new Master Sakal'la; not there on my previous missions to Station 452." The elderly Vulcan raised a hand.

"If it were only this oversight I would have not sought thee. Thee keep thyself busy; so busy thee are making foolish decisions. The Legarians, yes, but also missing two meetings with the Klingons. I heard reports of thee keeping a human in thine company for some time." Sakal'la stated without inflection.

"Only in relation to the affairs of the Federation. Our association was not one I sought." Sarek kept his eyes low though his reasoning found no fault with what he had told Sakal'la.

"Perhaps. I think thee would do well to seek out another logical reason to have her return to Vulcan with you; would she be interested in diplomacy? Her father was an ambassador from the data I could gather." Sarek raised an eyebrow. He was uncertain as to the other man's end.

"How could thee have found that out with computers forbidden within the monastery?" Sarek asked.

"Thee will learn that complete isolation is illogical; I am a creature of reason, being Vulcan. I also promised to insure Solkar's kin were sufficiently cared for where I could."

"That is a wise course. And I thank thee for thy care."

"Why have thee sent this Perrin Landover away?" Solkar swiftly returned the conversation to his previous question.

"I do not understand your concern for our separation."

Sakal'la waited some time to reply. His eyes glazed over, his gaze seeming to recede into his katra, to seek the inner knowledge of his essence.

"I sense sitting here now an imbalance within thee Sarek. Perhaps the humans and the younger Vulcans might overlook it but I cannot. It hangs on thee like the carcass of a lanka-gar." He placed a hand on Sarek, lightly but firm enough for Sarek to feel some of Sakal'la unvoiced weariness and concern. "Within the heart of a Vulcan there are things logic cannot touch sparing those who have undergone the kolinahr, and even for them I see a light deep in their katra that shines from the times of our wild ancestors. There are those for whom Pon Farr is enough to sedate, to touch upon those unreachable points. But as it was with thine grandfather so it is with thee, Sarek. Thee hath a need that cannot be satisfied by the teachings of Surak. Upon the death of thine wife, Amanda, I could not deny my concerns for thee. Then thee seemed to be focused once more but three months ago it came again; the signs of unfilled desire encroaching on thine mind." Sakal'la finished and it skirted away months of fabrication shielding Sarek's mind.

Sarek got up and turned but the space of the tower was limited and he did not dare leave and offend the older Vulcan master. It seems that I have not learned from my grief for Amanda, Sarek noted. In his thoughts, allowing himself to face them fully as he did on the day of Spock's arrival, he reached out and found the discord that followed his wife's passing had been raised again. The turmoil was not so much but it was controlled in the early days after the accident on Tau Ceti. It was in his allowing it to fester unheeded that it grew and Sarek surmised it had again in the months since Reynard's funeral. Now, however, he couldn't choke it down since the grief was tied to something else now that he could never face. He would not face just for his own sake.

"You sense my failure—" Sarek began but Sakal'la cut him off.

"It is no failing to need others. Surak's teachings would have died with him without his loyal followers, without Haadok. Thine need, your grandfather's need hath brought Earth and Vulcan closer than they would have otherwise been. Trust this need in thee."

"I will not deny the wisdom of your words."

"But, sadly, that is exactly what you're going to do?" Sakal'la countered in an Earth language he'd learned in service of Sarek's grandfather.

"I cannot fulfill that desire with Perrin."

"Why can thee not? Speak freely with one whom hath known thee since thee were merely a possibility."

"Amanda loved me." He paused over the words though most Vulcans understood that particular emotion was the reason humans married at all. "She loved me but illogically overlooked what that meant. I sensed in her a dissatisfaction at times with our ways and that she would not see her love returned. I am uncertain Perrin would not make that same mistake."

"It is a mistake she is free to make. Meld with her, so she may understand the risk."

"I believe she does."

"Then ask her to return to Vulcan with thee."

"I cannot do so."

Sakal'la considered Sarek's answer.

"Then Sarek, thee hath three logical choices: ask her, which you will not do; undergo the kolinahr and purge away this need within you, though I sense a great loss for the Federation in your doing so; or retire as ambassador and go into exile to be engulfed by a desire you will not be able to control as time passes."


	23. Chapter 23

Sarek left Master Sakal'la and returned to his ship. Ascending slowly, he watched the older Vulcan as long as he could before increasing speed to escape the planet's atmosphere. He looked out at the stars, and from visiting the monastery often in his youth, he knew the speck that was Vulcan from the hundreds of points dotting the void. Also imputing the data for his return as he searched, he paused. There was a drawl over the bridge; the screens that showed engine performance were beyond Sarek's noticing, and what was not directly in front of him slowed.

He collapsed into the command chair.

"Computer, avoid collisions and proceed to any region of space that meets these specifications: it will be 3 light years from any astronomical objects and it will be outside of the normal traffic areas for star ships."

It was sometime before the ship stopped, during which Sarek quickly checked the plasma injector again to insure it sat securely in its housing and disengaged the communications receiver; he then returned to the bridge. The viewscreen showed that the ship was stationary.

Stopped in a region of space with so little, Sarek still felt there were stars that encroached by the virtue of being seen at all. He faced towards a cluster of dark spots, and recalled the darkest region of space he'd ever experienced: when a Federation galaxy class ship had not been updated on the existence of a rogue black hole approaching their path. For a brief moment then in his assigned quarters as an aide to the previous Vulcan ambassador to Earth, he could look out and see nothing. The other crew, human, had reported the phenomenon earlier but Sarek and the ambassador had still seen a few distant stars, there vision naturally much sharper. In his quarters, in the pull of the black hole, Sarek had stared into forever without understanding what his eyes perceived, the power on his deck had gone out, there were no more light sources, and he felt a truer darkness than he would ever experience following it. And then he had dangled there within the thin protection of the federation's largest class of ships over the edge of forever, and in looking around himself he found no shelter. It was brief, but he had formed a deep insight into his katra then. He had married Amanda a half decade thereafter.

Sarek commanded for all the artificial lighting on the ship to shut off; it did and the stars brightened while behind him the ship became featureless. He spoke his thoughts aloud.

"Perrin, I believe Master Sakal'la was correct. Your presence would calm that unsettled portion of my mind. But I am uncertain that course would be wise for you; I have spent almost the whole of my life in service for others. I cannot turn away from considering you in this. I will not and this past month has shown such a course, was I to pursue it, would cause you great distress. Yet the choice is not mine to make. I should not deny you that though I sense you might choose without logic."

He turned deeper into himself as his eyes became unsettled by the dark. His thoughts faded as well; he was left with vague sensations, an overview of his emotions. They were contained but he grazed them and felt their fierceness and the conditions that created those emotions: Amanda's death, leaving Perrin, his estrangement from Spock, the death of Kirk's son, his father's cold disappointment at times, when he became ambassador to Earth, when his children were born, when Michael rescued him.

He focused on his life with Amanda. He turned over Perrin's expressions when he came to his niece's apartment to listen to her play. He recalled meeting her. He deliberated.

* * *

"I've seen Ambassador Spock do something similar but he was injured but what we're dealing with here I couldn't say." Sarek heard the voice of Dr. McCoy as his mind resurfaced.

"He's not asleep?"

"Listen here; you think I've been practicing medicine for going on a century just to not notice when a man's sleeping?"

"Sorry doctor." Came the reply.

Sarek pulled himself out of his meditations and addressed the room. Dr. McCoy held onto the edge of the biobed Sarek lay on and was startled as he rose and stood next to the old human with ease.

"Doctor; I seem to have caused you and your team some concern. Forgive me." McCoy responded with laughter. Hobbling out to the hall, the he waved Sarek to follow him.

"I'm assuming you were just pulling the wool over our eyes. You don't really need any help?"

"I do not."

"Well next time don't turn off your communications and make it look like nobody's home; the captain picked up on you while he was shuttling me to my next speech. Had a heart attack when scans showed it was you."

"Have you not retired?" Sarek inquired, moving to the other's left as the traffic in the halls picked up passing the mess hall and moving the conversation away from him.

"A doctor might retire for a few days but we're a restless bunch. I still have a lot to teach these youngsters."

"Indeed."

As they passed by an opened Jefferies tube, Dr. McCoy held his hands behind his back, eyeing Sarek as he crossed his own hands in front of him. In thought, he rolled on his feet; Sarek did not understand the gesture entirely but he had become familiar enough with the human to know he had something to say when he did so. The motion was unsteady compared to when he first knew him.

"I meet someone rather interesting at a dinner I just came from. You're actually keeping me up, I'm running on one hour of sleep."

"Then we will speak at a later time." Replied Sarek.

"With all due respect sir I believe I want to tell you now, while it's fresh. I saw Perrin. We had a long chat, she and I." McCoy said scandalously.

Sarek did not indulge him with a response though McCoy did not need one. He opened his mouth to speak when an ensign holding up a tray of test tubes, skirting around them towards the mess hall, tripped over Sarek's robes. She slammed the glass against the floor, everything shattering, the tray splitting in two. Under her flames erupted and spread over to where Sarek and McCoy stood.

He backed away, putting his arms behind the elderly human and holding him up from the flames. Years of discipline numbed the burns he noted forming on his feet from the heat. He hooked his right leg around the ensign's waist and hopped away from the fire, trying to keep McCoy steady as he did so. The flames followed, clinging to her vest. To escape them, Sarek went up to a vacant room and placed McCoy in it, shutting the doors. He now held the ensign as he had McCoy, sprinting with her back to sickbay, pointing several panicking crewmembers to McCoy's location and ignoring the burns now forming in his hands and on his chest as he held her close.

"Son, I can run faster than you're going!" He heard McCoy berating someone as he reentered sickbay, placing the ensign on the biobed he had vacated earlier. Now alerted by her screaming, the medical staff rushed to her. Without thought, Sarek reached for the melding points on her head.

Unchecked pain erupted over the whole of his back. But he did not scream as she had; he contained it and sent out his own calm into her mind. The biobed showed her heart rate slowing to normal, her breathing slowing similarly. Her screaming stopped and she held his eyes with Vulcan evenness. She looked at him with his own expression. The nurses administered a sedative that took immediate effect.

Lowering his hands and letting go of her now pain-free mind, Sarek moved back to where McCoy had lowered himself from one of the crewmember's backs. They looked between McCoy and Sarek timidly before heading back out into the hall. Soon McCoy had Sarek on another biobed. He grabbed a cellular regenerator and directed one of the nurses to take off Sarek's robes. Noting their hesitant approach, he waved off the nurses and proceeded to remove them himself.

The synthetic fabric had fused slightly to his skin, and he saw the ensign's vest had too to her back as he glanced over the room while sliding off the pendant around his neck last.

He has remained quite lithe, Sarek mused as McCoy waved the cellular regenerator around him after his robes had been removed, the burn fabric and skin flaking off as McCoy went. Faster than the ensign, Sarek was healed. But Sarek stayed, lying on the biobed until the medical staff drifted away from the ensign and he could clearly see her back regained the smooth, pink appearance of healthy human skin. He turned to McCoy, who chuckled a bit.

"Doctor?" he asked, curious.

"Aww, she'll be fine; softy just like your son. They keep you on your toes, keep you young."

"Who?"

"Just other people Ambassador." McCoy picked back up their earlier conversation. "Perrin said she has a show going every Friday out in Paris at that opera house. It should be Thursday night there right now." He added suggestively. Aware of the doctor's intentions, Sarek nodded and got up to leave. McCoy held out a hand over his chest and though there was no force behind it Sarek stopped. He pointed to a row of tricorders. Sarek rested back on his elbows, knowing it would be best to concede. He had been under the old doctor's care before, he and his son; Sarek would be strapped to the bed with no ceremony or consideration if he moved as he was not an ambassador but a patient here.

Spock.

Sarek spoke without thought. "Doctor, did my son find his time on the Enterprise satisfactory?"

McCoy hesitated with an answer. He started to roll on his feet again as he had in the hall before the accident.

"Well its not as if I'd have any way to tell with that poker face of his." McCoy mulled over this. "No, I think he did. Yeah, I'm certain of it."

"Then his remaining on Vulcan as most do would have been a detriment." Stated Sarek.

"Well I don't know about that. I think he just went where he wanted to be. He's stubborn, but I've never known him to be deliberately stupid so I'm sure he thought it all through." McCoy, laid down the tricorder, throwing a last comment over his shoulder as he went to look at the results on a larger screen. "And if this is some roundabout way to talk about Perrin, she's not stupid either, just stubborn. Hell, she's giving you two a money for your money."

Sarek put his focus on his earlier meditations, ignoring McCoy's comment.

I am not certain I wish to retire, Sarek mused. He studied his green veins, highly visible along the insides of his arms as with most Vulcans of his age. He did not wish enter a monastery as many as old as he would. The Legarians, the Klingons, whomever else in the galaxy the Federation had yet to encounter and would by necessity require some degree of diplomatic relations with; he wished to continue the federation's efforts in that regard. But at what cost, Sarek thought.

McCoy returned with the results. Scolding him for Sarek's earlier rescue after noticing recent re-tearing of his heart tissue, McCoy allowed him to dress. By then the ensign was somewhat more lucid. She glanced over at Sarek and waved enthusiastically, falling off the biobed as she did. Still dazed from the pain reliever, she threw up on the floor and crawled toward him and McCoy, weaving painfully. The medical staff rushed to pick her up.

"Thanks, thanks, thank you sir!" she yelled to Sarek. Not certain how to address her, he decided to nod.

"One does not thank someone for doing what is logical." He replied. As she threw up again on the Chief of Medicine who helped her back up, Sarek hypothesized it was unlikely she understood him or her own actions.

"Strange she acts in that manner considering her grievous injuries." Mused Sarek. McCoy huffed in amusement.

"You don't join Starfleet hoping to play it safe. They live for this like a fish lives for water."

"She was in quite some pain; I melded with her to reduce it before the hypospray began to affect her." Sarek countered.

"Yeah, and she also got to experience the mind of one of the Federation's most beloved members." McCoy spoke with a sarcastic tone that hinted sincerity.

He continued. "Ambassador, she's a grown lady, young yes, but not so young she doesn't know what she's signing up for, doesn't know what she wants out of life."

Sarek considered McCoy's words. He concluded he was not speaking entirely of the ensign alone.


	24. Chapter 24

Perrin stood with a few other members of the orchestra in the grand foyer under the chandelier marking the entrance to the Grand Escalier, which led into the theater. Most of the Palais Garnier's audience on Fridays was off-worlders so Perrin was not caught off guard seeing Sakkath with a small group of Vulcans pacing the hall observantly, eventually following further into the building. He saluted Perrin as he passed, opening his mouth but pushed past before he could say anything. She peaked around the door and smiled as he went up the stairs.

"I'm actually kind of impressed with the crowds." One of the harpist whispered into her ear. She leaned in to reply, casting off another smile to the crowd, returning a handshake with a regular.

"Tonight is the anniversary." She gestured around the building.

"Ah." Answered the harpist, going back to thanking everyone for coming.

Perrin scanned over the crowd, stepping up on toes so that she also caught the edge of the ceiling. She looked up at it with wonder; with a bittersweet remembrance of when she was young and her mother would greet her and her father coming in to see her performing. These past weeks she finally took notice with pride for it being the first thing she saw going in for practice and to preform. Her eyes naturally followed the glided columns up to it, to the framed paintings that danced along the hall and folded along the sides slightly. At night noticing the details was impossible so Perrin settled for a vague impression of the different scenes being acted out by renaissance nudes framed in gold painted molding over the foyer.

As the foot traffic started to trickle, she and the other performers went outside to the side entrance leading backstage. Thinking she saw someone else she recognized, Perrin hesitated until the others called back to her. She hurried after as the wind furiously whipped tuffs of slush at them, and she tripped on a streetlight. While rubbing away the pain she forgot why whom she noticed looked familiar. Perrin followed the rest inside, refocused on tonight's performance. Perrin thought of her mother again; she remembered sitting on the other side of the stage with her father to watch her.

When the performers heard the theater doors shut in front of the curtains, they readied their instruments, sat down—upright. The heavy fabric would be pulled back soon and the night would begin. Perrin's heart raced.

A packed house appeared before them. The boxes closest to her held high-ranking ambassadors; the President's reserved box was empty. A small light was still visible towards the back of the box, which was odd as it was unoccupied. She leaned forward as though adjusting her posture but saw no one. The conductor came out and bowed, bringing her focus back to the stage. The whole orchestra stood to greet him, sitting down as he reached his stand.

The night's pieces were meant to showcase certain performers as they had a guest cellist, flutist, and pianist all from the Chicago Symphony. Perrin rested her violin on her lap for the first half hour and looked on as they performed with a few harmonious parts dolled out in the percussions. The last piece before the entire orchestra would continue as normal had her and five others moving temporarily to the front of the stage to play the second movement of Brahms' Sextet No. 1. The guest cellist, Jordan, reached out to shake her hand as they had been missing each other all week and would be playing together for the first time. Caught off guard by his crushing grip, she pinched lightly the back of his finger as they did. Not realizing he was holding her hand so hard, Jordan frowned apologetically and they both turned to face the audience. Someone was in the President's box now. She didn't look to see whom as the conductor lifted up his arms to begin.

At the end when she went back to head second row of violinist she saw whom: Sarek. She had to close her eyes as she sat back down, nearly missing the string section's lead into the proceeding nocturne. Her heart raced as she rushed to get into form.

Perrin played evenly despite her mind drifting to him and his eyes, due to the closeness of the box he watched from, heaving his focus on her alone. She listened deeply to the others play around her and allowed that to pull her back onto the stage though she felt some of herself remained teetered on the balcony that Sarek pressed against; it felt the elevated heat he expelled. That heat she remembered had clutched her in despair, and had kissed her as she weaved under her own grief. Though she was aware it was the lights bearing on them, Perrin felt like she was curled at his side as the heat intensified through the rest of the night, unto the moment they thanked the audience for coming and bowed.

Normally she would stay out to talk with the others but she ran back to the dressing rooms to grab her coat and case. Jordan found her as she skirted towards the exit.

"Hey; I'm sorry about that; Remé has a really firm grip." He was another violinist that played the part of Perrin for Jordan and Jordan for Perrin the past week. Perrin passed it off as nothing, trying to leave but he begged her to stay with a look of concern.

"I really just hope I didn't offend you so don't leave because of me."

"No I was simply—"

"Please, my boyfriend just came back from patrol by the neutral zone, he wants to meet everybody."

"I am truly just tired—"

"Oh please, please. I am really sorry; just stay one minute, one second." He begged, by then his expression distraught and his shoulders hunched woefully. Remé himself came over to them and helped Jordan drag her into the crowds. She attempted to move closer to the exit but was led along deeper into the building.

Parried down the grand staircase they had corralled her to for two hours, Perrin toed between the same five steps gaining no ground. The audience members surrounded her only knowing that she'd been put front and center for the sextet; the other violinists held her close to complain about the upcoming roster of impossible pieces. She stepped to the side and gave a brief nod to Mia and Darrin, both scaling up the bannister to sneak around the crowds. Perrin hadn't seen them come in when greeting guests. They waved enthusiastically; Darrin eyes were soft, slightly concerned. Swirled around by Jordan and Remé to explain their joke that she and the visiting cellist had met during that night's performance, she saw Sakkath between their two heads that crooked in laughter when the punch line was given. He came up with his acquaintances and waltzed her into an explanation of the songs. Their dry interest carried her back to the top of the stairs; the grand foyer below became overridden by people now starting to leave. Before answering their questions Perrin looked around desperately trying to make sure Sarek had left too. No other pointed ears among the people still there.

She took them into back into the theater to answer one of the younger Vulcan's questions. Seeing them, she let Mia and Darrin go first. Inside she pointed to the vastness of the room.

"We actually chose those pieces because of the Chagall frescoe; they represent some of the people he chose for his work." She turned back to Sakkath, listening to Mia and Darrin run madly to the stage behind her.

"Why for that specifically?"

"Well, it's an anniversary for the Palais Garnier. Tonight marks when—" she was cut off.

"Oh hey! Again I swear to god I didn't mean anything that day, still not sure if that's why you keep looking like that." The stomping on the stage stopped as Darrin yelled across. Sakkath moved past her. She turned. Sarek. He had lingered in the lowest box and did not move to her though his eyes seemed to have such a clear focus Perrin was almost certain his Vulcan hearing would have allowed his eyes to see her through the walls when she'd been standing on the grand staircase a moment ago. Her heart picked up and she was forced to meet to him if she wanted to remain aloof.

"My expression is independent of emotional considerations." Sarek replied to Darrin without facing him.

Sarek's attention did not waver on her.

Sakkath saluted him and moved to allow Perrin to step closer as he spoke. "Ambassador Sarek I had spoken with Perrin on a previous occasion concerning you." Sarek did not appear moved.

"And what did you discuss?"

"She is in search of a teacher of Vulcan meditations. I was my conclusion that you would be the most logical choice given your abilities." Sakkath stated. His acquaintances, hearing this, went to stand by the stage. Sarek turned to address Perrin who tried to follow the other Vulcans to continue her earlier conversation with them but he caught her eye before she could.

"I have received no request of that nature from you."

"I simply saw no reason to bother you with such a silly request Sarek—ambassador." She glanced at Sakkath while correcting herself.

"It is no bother Perrin. I have taken a leave of 18.5 days to reacquaint myself with earthmen. I noted in a discussion with Ambassador Taylor that in my two-year negotiations on Excalbia has dulled by knowledge of Earth's current interest. I hope to rectify that and to assuage the Federation's fears regarding recent events affecting my abilities as an ambassador."

"Quite logical ambassador." Chimed Sakkath; Sarek acknowledged him with a nod.

"Surely we couldn't do it tonight. This place is quite crowded and management has it emptied by midnight every night. It is 11:41 already." Said Perrin.

"Your argument is quite logical. Yet there is another option if you feel a need for such techniques to be known."

Sakkath cut in "I believe so ambassador; she displayed textbook symptoms of emotional distress when I spoke to her. Listlessness, unfocused eyes, furrowing of the lips, delayed responses, heightened pitch in her voice."

"That does warrant immediate attention in my experience Sakkath. There are other places we could go; your loft has a small seating area." Sarek suggested to Perrin. Her heart began to race in confusion.

He wants to go, just he and I, to my loft, she thought. Remembering how he'd left her childhood home without any consideration for her despite that he'd witnessed her grief firsthand in a mind meld, she didn't understand what he wanted now. She'd come to learn he was not a cruel person; he left her in the cruelest way then. If I had never seen him again I could assume his reasons were logical, she thought bitterly. Here he is. Maybe they were not.

Sakkath's acquaintances left, followed by Mia and Darrin who both patted her on the back suggestively. She then remembered with a blush how much they enjoyed spinning tales. Perrin wanted to follow them. Instead, she agreed to take Sarek to her apartment, unwilling to let him cause her to slip back into suspicion and isolation as Valor originally had, not wanting him to question why if she didn't.

They dodged the deer and foxes that came begging for food in the streets of Paris due to the lowered traffic from the snow. Sarek and she went unnoticed as they walked in silence to her house. He led up the stairs when they arrived at her building and went first into the loft. He remembers the code, Perrin thought when he automatically keyed it in to open the door. Moving towards the only chair in the loft, Sarek settled near her bed, finally breaking that unconscious focus she'd felt from him since the performance earlier. It turned introspective; his eyes glazed, faraway now. She stood at the end of the bed and managed to raise her eyes to meet his, still distant.

Not sure what she wanted him to say but sure it would not be what she wanted to hear, couldn't be, she did not speak. With the lights still off her despondence stretched to fill the whole space. He did not move closer to her and betrayed no intentions to. She hoped he would, glancing at the shelf that held the photos of people she cared about; every one of them was now dead. And Sarek was the only one besides her who had sat in the chair he sat in now. She cleared her throat as it felt dry from the stage lights in the theater. Sarek remained still.

Perrin took a chance and lied down on the bed as though she were tired. It put her inches from him. He began to shift. Her heartbeat picked up.

He sat on the edge of the bed, just above her head. He hovered over her and leaned down to whisper though the windows and balcony doors were shut.

"Your playing was quite satisfactory Perrin." Her breath caught at his tone.

"How kind; thank you." She answered simply. He searched her face a moment.

"I had been considering it and decided to come listen to you tonight." He searched her eyes now, her lips. "Why are you in need of a teacher?" He asked, referring to Sakkath's comment. You, she thought, tilting her head slightly to hide in the shadow of her wardrobe. But she couldn't decide whether to say so; she settled on something less true but not wholly dishonest.

"I have been able to pick myself back up after my father's death. But I simply feel lost at times. As if I'm wasting away slowly; it comes and goes." She ended as blasé as she could. Her eyes reached for his anyways and she felt recognition in his. Sarek spoke, finally facing his attention to her.

"I could guide you through the same technique as last—"

"No." she cut him off, her voice breaking slightly, "I think you had your reasons for leaving me then. I will not have you coming back unless I'm certain you wish to be here. Why are you here Sarek?" Perrin demanded.

"I have a decision to make that involves you Perrin. I am uncertain I should tell you what that decision is."

She nodded. She watched him closely, trying to see if anything would show how he felt. He closed his eyes as he spoke with a degree of restrained tension, pulling back his lips.

"Did you find your time on Vulcan satisfactory?"

"Ambassador Sa'lak took me once when I was young; I've always liked it there." She answered.

"What emotions do you experience regarding me?"

Perrin's heart raced enough now she could feel each beat threatening to carry her down to the street, out into the night, far away back to her childhood bedroom. She wanted to hide there and pretend it would be sufficient. But the past year had taught her it wouldn't be. She answered truthfully.

"Love. Trust. Anxiety. Hope that you might—" she buried her face in the comforter, "feel the same. I feel you do." He did not answer with words.

Sarek reached out to hold her hand and gently moved her across the bed so he could lie down beside her. He laced his other hand through her hair, pushing it away so he could move closer. Feeling relief as he did, Perrin buried her head in his neck, pulling him to her with her other arm as her left hand held his. Not like the light of T'khut, in the moonlight she could barely make the flush of green along the base of his neck, the brilliant embroidery along the collar of his tunic that felt soft to her cheek. She could feel the strained muscles on his face loosen, his lips curling up so lightly she wasn't entirely certain they had. She turned to meet them as he'd once with her.

* * *

 _What was it like with Amanda? I had asked some of the other humans I had encountered in the course of my work of the accepted amount of time before one asked to marry. No consensus could be reached so I was forced to foretell her of my intentions without adequate preparations to insure the proper reception of my intent. Her agreement was immediate. I experienced joy though the emotion was unnecessary; it seemed she had been making similar inquires towards the Vulcans at the embassy._

 _There was some agreement that the proposal should not be made within the first month; at the turn of spring should be enough._

Sarek had woken some hours before as the curtains had not been drawn and the last drunks were coming home at dawn. He'd meditated, drawing the covers over himself further as the winds picked up in the street. They knocked on the door, slipped through the cracks to whirl around him, to brace against his skin with a cold touch the longest nights in the deserts of Vulcan could not manage. And he turned from the cool air to note whether Perrin felt it too, she shivered and moved closer to him, still lying over the heavy quilt. When she settled her head, on his forearm, she woke. She looked blearily at Sarek, smiling after a moment. Looking down, she laughed; why escaped him. Perrin started to pull back the sheets. It is strange how humans can live in such conditions, he mused as a draft came through the gap Perrin had created by lifting them; he held them back down with a quirked eyebrow.

"You look like a little cat under the sheets." She teased. Sarek saw no need to respond to such an illogical statement.

Perrin got up and went to her wardrobe to get another blanket and to turn up the heat on the environmental controls.

"You will close the curtains as well." Sarek called to her as she came back to the bed.

"Are you sure?"

"I have not acquired the proper amount of rest due to the light." He explained. Sarek had noted he had accrued a great deal of vacation time and used a portion of it on his visit to Earth: 18.5 days of it; there was no need to deprive himself on rest under such circumstances. It had been long since he last spent any real time on Earth. Perrin pulled the curtains. With a playful laugh she threw the blanket she had grabbed over Sarek as she came back. He sensed her jumping across him and the bed shaking wildly when she landed. She snatched away the blanket so that he could see again. He looked over at her. She had a sly look in her eye that faded quickly to contentment, her face then fell slightly so he could not say whether what emotions she felt were positive.

"Do you wish to speak?" Sarek asked. Perrin looked behind her to a row of photos in thought.

"Was there anything you would have told her before she died? Anything you would have done?" Sarek concluded she spoke of his wife.

He spoke hesitantly, "Perhaps. Many cultures feel that death crosses beyond the normal routines of life, cuts through the standards of social interactions. During my time as ambassador to Earth I noted this with humans especially; it is so with Vulcans as well. My wife never expected me to examine the human customs of affection; it is not our way. But—" Sarek thought back to the day Amanda was meant to die, to how he had planned her dying moments to be, "could I deny her that closeness if she was near death? If I held her then, who would have found fault?"

Perrin leaned on his shoulder for a moment; he let her. His reputation in the Federation, on Vulcan, satisfactory, who could fault him for allowing her hold onto him from time to time? If he held her in return it would only be logical.


End file.
